NORFOLK, Va. — Reclaiming the family names has been of great interest in my own family. Many people may not know, but both my maiden and my married name is Roach. I married Harold Roach in 2001.
He grew up in Virginia and I grew up in North Carolina. The family elders assured us we were not related. Fortunately, DNA backs that up.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Harold began researching the Roach name. It is a slow, time-consuming journey.
"You are trying to discover things that were deliberately kept from people," Harold said.
Genealogy research has always been a challenge for African American families. For those of us who are descendants of the enslaved, our ancestors were documented as property. African Americans were not listed on the federal census until 1870, after emancipation.
Harold and I have run into roadblocks trying to find our family names but we've managed to unearth intriguing ancestral finds.
I discovered that my great-great-grandmother was Anne Harris who married a man Nelson Roach back in 1865 in Guilford County, NC. That's when she became Anne Roach. That's how I got the Roach name.
We tell our story in the 13 News Now documentary, Roots Recovered: Reclaiming Our Names, which will air Friday, February 23, at 8 p.m. on 13News Now. You can also watch it streaming on the 13News Now+ app, available on Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV.