Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom

Chapter 7: The Genomics Perspective on Venture Smith: Genetics, Ancestry, and the Meaning of Family

· 207 · 7 The Genomics Perspective on Venture Smith Genetics, Ancestry, and the Meaning of Family Linda Strausbaugh, Joshua Suhl, Craig O’Connor, and Heather Nelson From my deepest heart and my family, I want to thank my grandmother, great-aunt, and aunts for preserving this [family history]. We are proud of who we are . . . Mandred T. Henry, eighth-generation descendent of Venture and Meg Smith, 2006 I T SEEMS that hardly a week passes without some reminder that genomic analysis can reveal, often in dramatic fashion, otherwise unknown aspects of human history. Whether through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, or the Internet, we are constantly learning about the potential applications of genetic studies. The determination of ancestry based on information derived from an individual’s DNA has become a highpro file cause, especially for the descendents of enslaved Africans, where there is often little in the way of records about the specific lands and peoples of their origins. In this environment, it was natural to ask if a genetics perspective could contribute to the Documenting Venture Smith Project. Carl Schaeffer , a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut and secretary of the Beecher House Society, and Chandler B. Saint, president of the Beecher House Society, first approached us in 2005 to ask if · 208 · l e g a c y it would be possible to learn more about the African origins of Venture Smith by studying the DNA of his descendents. Like the vast majority of Americans, we knew nothing about Smith, but over the next several months we would come to know his story well. Not only did we become committed to documenting the genetic legacy of Venture and his wife, Marget (known as Meg), but we also became equally committed to using the opportunity presented by our studies of Venture’s family to prompt a public discussion about what DNA analysis can and cannot tell us about who we are and where we come from. We share the view that the current interest in genetic genealogy can foster a more broadly based interest in the interface between science and society, as well as promote public literacy concerning genetics and the African origin of our species. The transatlantic slave trade was one part of a bridge between the Old and New Worlds,1 transporting millions of people across the globe and permanently altering the world’s genetic landscape through its survivors. Unfortunately , relatively few living descendents can accurately trace their families’ lineage back to their founding enslaved ancestors. As geneticists, we found the most compelling factor in undertaking a study of the genetic legacy of Meg and Venture to be the availability of a family tree; as one writer has noted, genomic analysis is “especially illuminating when DNA evidence can be combined with historical evidence.”2 Just as Venture’s Narrative would guide historians in their scholarship,3 so the family tree would guide us in our research. Thanks to the efforts of the many generations of descendents who kept Venture’s story alive in their own oral histories and the tireless work and dedication of Karl P. Stofko of the First Church Cemetery Association of East Haddam, Connecticut, a family tree that documented ten generations of descendants from Venture and Meg Smith had been created.4 This information was invaluable from a genetics perspective, since we knew that it should be possible to “look backward” from living descendents to learn something about previous generations; if we were very lucky, we might be able to work back to Venture and Meg. Of greater interest to us, we knew for certain that we could “look forward” to paint the genetic landscape left by Meg and Venture by determining the different lineages that have become part of the legacy that is Venture’s family tree. In the early part of 2006, a second avenue of genetic research presented itself . Members of the DNA team attended the annual Uncle Tom’s Cabin Dinner sponsored by the Beecher House Center, and had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Coralynne Henry Jackson, a seventh-generation descendent of Meg and Venture Smith, and her niece Susan Henry Ryan. The astute Mrs. Jackson · 209 · The Genomics Perspective on Venture Smith asked why we were not attempting to directly extract and test DNA from the bones of her ancestors. This question initiated a series of conversations between Chandler Saint and...