In the summer of 2021, Patricia Williams and her daughter, Jasmine Barnes, began cultivating and refining a genealogy idea Patricia conceived and named My Black Origins. For over a decade, Jasmine watched and supported her mom in her journey to piece together their family history. As descendants of Southern Black folks who’d been displaced due to enslavement, Jim Crow and the Great Migration, their family connections and history were scattered at best. Pat’s fascination with their origins and family story led her to dive deep into genealogical research. With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Pat and Jasmine sought a way to stay connected in a meaningful way. Jasmine, the storyteller, had the idea of writing the family narrative to bring the data and research alive with a story they could learn from and pass on.
The journey to tell this family story has led to so many rich and transformative conversations, travel throughout the Deep South and their individual healing journeys.
My Black Origins is a passion project rooted in a belief that genealogy is our birthright and that ancestral knowledge can break generational chains of trauma. Pat and Jasmine are excited to begin sharing and offering the tools, knowledge and emerging wisdom to the broader Black American Community!
Our big call to action for the moment is that you complete our My Black Origins Survey. This is an assessment so we can get a better understanding of what our community needs, centering on Black Americans who are the descendants of enslaved people.
We also plan to use the data collected from the survey to verify community needs and interests in order to apply for continued funding and resources to make this project more viable, scalable and sustainable.
Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and check out our Resources Page for the most up-to-date information.
We feel deeply embedded in the community we hope to serve through My Black Origins. As the descendants of Southern Black people who’ve survived chattel slavery, the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration, we’re proud to be a part of a people who are resilient, innovative and brilliant.
Patricia Williams
Patricia Williams is the daughter of John and Bessie Brunson, the granddaughter of sharecroppers and the great granddaughter of slaves. A Houston Texas transplant from Detroit Michigan, she was educated in Detroit Public Schools and raised by parents who were both the children of sharecroppers. Like many other Black descendants of American slaves, Patricia came into adulthood very little knowledge her family history. She chose a career in technology as a Business Analyst which has helped her develop skills in research and problem solving. Pat uses her love of history, passion for family, self-awareness, and healing to study and document Black family ancestries. Patricia is a researcher, collaborator, and perpetual encourager. Her future aspirations are dedicated to the uplifting and enlightening of current and future generations of Black Americans.
Jasmine Barnes
Jasmine Barnes is the daughter of Patricia Williams, the granddaughter of Bessie Brunson and the great granddaughter of Maggie Bester Foster. She was deeply inspired by her mother’s devotion to genealogical research and recovering their family history. This influenced Jasmine’s undergraduate studies in sociology and journalism and motivated her to start recording oral histories from her 95-year-old grandmother. Jasmine has watched the way that this journey has deepened her relationship to her relatives and bolstered her own racial healing journey. With a professional background in nonprofit leadership and group facilitation, she wants to utilize her gifts to encourage more healing for herself, her family and the Black community at large. Generations of trauma can be broken through one person (like her mother). Jasmine hopes to devote this season of her life to building upon her Mother’s living legacy as a cycle-breaker and supporting others to do the same.
My Black Origins 