How the Campus Genealogy Project helped Detroiters connect to their family legacies

Dr. Brenda McGadney, a participant in the WSU Campus Genealogy Project, poses with a book written by her cousin about their infamous ancestor Wyatt Tate

As Wayne State University prepares for its Juneteenth observance, one of the university's most meaningful community initiatives has unfolded not in lecture halls or laboratories, but in archives, census records and family stories passed down across generations.

Over the past year, Wayne State's genealogy project - organized through the university's Office of Inclusive Excellence and guided by veteran genealogist Dr. Carolyn Carter - has helped participants reconnect with histories that were often fragmented by slavery, migration and the erasure of Black historical records. Through workshops, research sessions and hands-on instruction, participants learned how to trace family lineages using archival databases, census records, DNA analysis and historical documents.

Dr. Carolyn Carter led the Campus Genealogy Project.

The fruits of the project will be featured in a documentary film that will premiere as part of WSU's Juneteenth celebration - which carries the theme "Centering Stories of Resilience" - at the Industry Innovation Center on June 17.

"Over a six-month period, we assisted 20-plus members of our campus and alumni community in their own family heritage journey," explained Dr. Donyale Padgett, vice provost for inclusive excellence at Wayne State. "This year, our nation celebrates 250 years. This year is also the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, which started as Negro History Week. These histories are forever intertwined. We celebrate Juneteenth to honor the resilience of the ancestors whose stories and traditions guide us. We invite all members of our community to come out to help us highlight this special occasion."

For many participants, the project became emotional, deeply personal work.

"I need to be on that train," recalled Dr. Brenda McGadney, laughing as she remembered emailing organizers after hearing about the cohort. "Put me on it. If I have to just sit over on the sideline, you don't have to worry about lunch, dinner - just let me come."

McGadney, a former Wayne State faculty member and longtime researcher whose work has taken her from Detroit to Ghana, arrived with decades of family knowledge already in hand. But the genealogy initiative helped her deepen that research and connect new pieces of her family's story.

One discovery centered on an infamous ancestor named Wyatt Tate, a relative whose story had circulated through oral history for generations. According to family accounts and newspaper archives McGadney uncovered, Tate became the subject of a nationwide manhunt in Alabama in 1894 after killing a sheriff and constable while defending his property.

"In 2023, I go to Alabama, do one of these genealogy searches, and I'm going to the backwoods where they said they shot him and caught him," McGadney said. "I found out that he was documented in over 80 newspapers across the country and Canada."

McGadney said that her collection of documents reflecting her family history included oral history as well as a grandfather's journals written in pencil that recorded financial loans to relatives, birth and death dates as well as marriages. The project also helped her uncover truths about her family's migration history.

"I found my mother's side, her side of the family, that they had actually come down from Virginia to Georgia to Alabama," she said.

As she studied migration records and census documents, McGadney began connecting her family history to what historians call the "Second Middle Passage" - the forced migration of enslaved people from the Upper South into Deep South states during the 19th century.

"All I could think about was one of her ancestors was a child, was marched from Richmond to Georgia and then to Alabama," she said.

The workshops themselves combined lectures, digital tools and individualized support. Participants met in person and online, eventually working hands-on in computer labs where Carter guided researchers through databases and genealogical methods.

"Dr. Carter, she can't stop," McGadney said affectionately. "She knows so much and just offers herself - 'Call me anytime. I'll come over your house' - because she loves it and it's infectious."

Dareno Johnson, a development associate in the College of Nursing, credited the Campus Genealogy Project for teaching him "the FAN" method for researching friends, associates and neighbors to learn more about his own relatives.

For Dareno Johnson, the project built upon a genealogy journey he had already begun after the death of his maternal grandmother, who had been adopted and knew little about her biological parents.

"That kind of sent me on a journey to find out who they were, figure out what her heritage was," Johnson, a development associate in the WSU College of Nursing, said. "A lot of the stuff that I found about her parents and just about her lineage in general - if she were here, she would be really proud to learn where she comes from."

Johnson eventually discovered that his great-great-grandfather, William Nelson Pendleton Harris, was a prominent Black educator in Harrisonburg, Virginia, who worked alongside pioneering educator Lucy Sims at a school for Black children.

The Wayne State genealogy cohort helped Johnson sharpen his research skills and interpret DNA results in more sophisticated ways.

"One of the biggest takeaways that I got from her was the FAN method," Johnson said, referring to Carter's instruction on researching "Friends, Associates and Neighbors" alongside direct ancestors.

By studying neighboring families in census records, Johnson said he began seeing migration patterns and community relationships more clearly.

"It's very important for African Americans to do this because a lot of our history has been erased," Johnson said. "A lot of our history is hard to find."

That sentiment echoed throughout the project and reflects why genealogy has become increasingly central to Juneteenth programming nationwide. For many African Americans, tracing family history is about reclaiming narratives disrupted by slavery, segregation and displacement.

McGadney believes universities have an important role to play in preserving and teaching that history.

"The word I would use is erasure," she said. "It is so important that we know - and I'm not talking about just African Americans - the experiences of slavery. You don't really know the depth that we built not just this country, but the impact we have made globally."

She hopes Wayne State continues and expands the program.

"I hope they can find a way to institutionalize some of the trainings that they've done," McGadney said. "This was really a fascinating experience, an amazing experience, and I was just so glad to be a part of it."

Johnson said the project has already inspired others around him to begin their own genealogical searches.

"I encourage anybody to look into their roots," he said. "I've actually inspired some people to do their own genealogical research."

As Wayne State's Juneteenth observance celebrates resilience, lineage and memory, the Campus Genealogy Project stands as a powerful reminder that history is not only found in textbooks or museums. Sometimes, it lives in old census records, family photographs, handwritten certificates, receipts, newspaper clippings - and in the unwavering determination of descendants to keep their legacies alive.