Finding Your Roots

GATES: I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Welcome to "Finding Your Roots."

In this episode, we'll meet actor Danielle Deadwyler and musician Rhiannon Giddens, two women whose family trees are filled with family secrets.

DEADWYLER: Just humans making human decisions.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Flawed, beautiful.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: But they want some love, apparently.

GATES: Right.

DEADWYLER: And they gonna go get it.

GIDDENS: Oh my God.

Yes, this is the moonshiner.

GATES: To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.

Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.

DEADWYLER: This is so rich.

GATES: While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.

GIDDENS: This is very intense.

GATES: And we've compiled it all into a Book of Life, a record of all of our discoveries.

GIDDENS: Geez Louise.

GATES: And a window into the hidden past.

The Hatwood branch of your family was freed before the Civil War.

GIDDENS: It's pretty... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...that's pretty crazy.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: How did they do that?

DEADWYLER: I'm about to dream so good the next few days.

GATES: Danielle and Rhiannon have deep roots in Georgia and North Carolina, and their family trees are filled with characters who might have been pulled from the pages of a Southern Gothic novel.

In this episode, we're going to separate fact from fiction, revealing who my guests' ancestors really were, while shedding light on our nation's complex racial past.

(theme music playing) (book closes).

(street noise).

(camera shutter).

GATES: Danielle Deadwyler's eyes speak volumes.

The renowned actor, who enthralled audiences in "Station Eleven," "The Harder They Fall," and "Till," is blessed with a steely gaze that can inspire everything from heartbreaking sorrow to abject terror.

But while Danielle's performances are tightly controlled, off-camera, she's bursting with energy, and she told me that as a child growing up in Atlanta, she had no idea that she'd end up as an actor.

She was just trying to stay busy.

DEADWYLER: I was always super active.

I did dance since I was, like, three, four years old.

Um, taekwondo, soccer.

If I could've played football, I would've... but my daddy wouldn't let me 'cause I was a little.

You know, so we just were a part of all these different things to keep us active.

GATES: Hmm.

When did you first discover that you were a performer, that you could entertain?

DEADWYLER: My consciousness about it, I don't know.

My mom says that she saw me dancing in front of the TV to "Soul Train."

GATES: Oh, yeah?

DEADWYLER: And she was like, "Oh, I need to put that baby in dance."

And so it's just always been there.

GATES: Dance classes would put Danielle on the path she's still following, but it would take time for her to find her way.

After college, Danielle earned a master's degree from Columbia University, then took a job teaching school before realizing she'd made a mistake.

DEADWYLER: I loved working with students.

Uh, and, 'cause I'd done, you know, GED, ESL teaching whilst at Columbia.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: But I was still doing the other things.

I was still in the arts.

This was a moment of just working and feeling like, "What am I doing?

Something's off.

This is not... This is s, s, you know, the frequency is, is jammed."

And I would do read-alouds with the students... GATES: Hmm.

DEADWYLER: ...'cause everybody loves to be read to, right?

GATES: Hmm.

DEADWYLER: Um, and that would steer, you know, the recollections, the echoes of who I really was.

GATES: What were you reading?

What were your favorite things to read aloud?

DEADWYLER: Probably something, something sci-fi-ish or something like that.

GATES: Right.

DEADWYLER: That's what students were into at the time.

GATES: Yeah.

DEADWYLER: Um, but they, I would put so much performative spirit and energy into it, 'cause... And they would, you know, the other teachers would read, but, you know, they would particularly dig when I did what I did.

I'm not bragging, but.

(laughing).

And I felt it with them.

GATES: Danielle would soon heed her own lesson.

She began doing plays in Atlanta, then moved to Hollywood, where she's become a star, bringing life to a dizzying array of roles in almost every genre, from comedy to horror, historical drama to dystopian science fiction.

But for all she's accomplished, Danielle remains deeply connected to the passion she first found in her childhood.

Now, here's a thought experiment: if you could go back in time and talk to that young girl watching "Soul Train," what advice would you give her?

DEADWYLER: Oh, just dance all the time.

Just keep dancing.

It's the best thing.

It connects you to everything.

It connects you to the earth.

It connects you to your body.

It connects you to your people.

It connects you to, to the above, to the beyond.

It is a language, uh, and it is the, it's the language that you've always known.

GATES: My second guest is Rhiannon Giddens, the Grammy Award-winning singer and banjo player, one of the most original talents in the long history of American folk music.

GIDDENS: And I don't have to worry what my husband will think because I'm no man's mama now.

GATES: Rhiannon was born in North Carolina, a place steeped in musical traditions, and as a biracial child with a White father and a Black mother, she inherited the full range of those traditions, from country western to blues, gospel, and soul.

But while both Rhiannon and her sister showed that they had musical gifts at a young age, they weren't pushed onto the stage; quite the contrary.

GIDDENS: We never really performed as kids.

I, it's one of the things I'm so grateful to my mom, like, you know, like a Star Search or whatever, they would do these... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...they would do these regional auditions, and so we'd always wanna go, and we'd, we'd wanna sing Whitney Houston.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: "Greatest Love of All," and she'd be like, "Nope.

You can do a kata."

GATES: Mm.

GIDDENS: We were in karate.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: She made us do karate.

And we were beginners.

You know, you're, you're kinda thinking like, you know, "Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon" or whatever, where they're like doing all these kicks.

We were not doing that.

It was like ch, ch.

You know, we'd wait in line, we'd get up there, we'd do our little kata, not get picked, and then go home.

And I feel like it was her way of just sort of turning us away from that like, applause thing.

GATES: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: So I'm super grateful that I never had that experience as a child, other than in my chorus, which was a group thing.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: Very rarely got solos.

That and, I never attached, like, the joy that I got from making music to applause.

GATES: Rhiannon would soon be finding joy and applause on a very different stage.

After high school, she was accepted into the prestigious conservatory at Oberlin College, where she studied opera and seemed destined for an international career.

But when she moved to New York City to pursue that career, she realized the conservatory had not exactly prepared her for the challenges of the real world.

GIDDENS: It's great for the training, but, you know, they don't really teach you how to get a job.

Because what you have to do is audition.

You gotta send out tapes.

You gotta, you know, you gotta live in New York, you gotta, like, travel, you gotta have money... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...basically, which I did not have.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: And so, you know, you send in the tape, and then you wait to hear, did I get called back to this thing?

Can I do this young artist program?

Meanwhile, you got to earn a living.

And it's just like, it's a different way of being, and I just was kinda like, I don't know if this, this is for me because I loved opera, but I was already kind of, I had sung, like, in different ways before I started singing classical music.

It's not like I was singing like that way for years before I went to Oberlin.

I was learning a lot of that stuff for the first time.

So I'd sung, you know, folk stuff with my dad or whatever, Celtic stuff, I joined a Celtic band, and kinda going, "This is cool."

You know, "I can just like make a show."

GATES: That realization changed Rhiannon's life, inspiring her to return to North Carolina, take up the banjo, a traditional African American instrument, and shift her focus from opera to folk music.

The results have been spectacular.

GIDDENS: 'Cause, babe, where there's smoke, babe, you know there's a fire.

SINGER: Oh, yeah.

ALL: Well, everybody's looking.

GATES: In the past two decades, Rhiannon has released three celebrated solo albums and collaborated on dozens more, finding fame and artistic satisfaction along the way.

Just as importantly, she's also come to grips with her own biracial heritage.

GIDDENS: I think every mixed person has this experience... well, I don't wanna speak for everybody, but many of us have, of, you know, being looked at with suspicion.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: Because we're not dark enough.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: Um, like experiences like, you know, listening to Queen Latifah, and like the Black girl who goes by and is like, "Listening to Queen Latifah don't make you Black."

You know, it's like, wasn't aware that that was what I was trying to do.

I just liked Queen Latifah, you know?

But I, you know, just having experiences like that and being questioned constantly by people, "What are you?"

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: "No, originally."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: "What are your parents?"

"No, originally."

GATES: Oh, right, yeah.

GIDDENS: That's the thing that every, like, vague-looking ethnic person has to, to go through.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: So, you know, I had to kinda come to terms with, you know, what does it mean to be Black?

What does it mean to be White?

What does it mean to be mixed?

What do you claim?

How can you be both at the same time?

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: You know, because I'm like, I got a lot of experience with my White family.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: You know?

Like, does that negate, just because society calls me a certain thing, does that negate my whole da, dad side of the family and all the experience that I've had with them?

You know what I mean?

GATES: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: You know, it, it, it's, it's been a journey, but for me, honestly, the banjo was at the center of releasing that.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: Because I was like, you know what?

Being Black is a lot of things.

GATES: Mm-hmm, yes.

GIDDENS: And this is the center of being Black for me.

Doesn't have to be for you.

Doesn't have to be for you.

But for me, the history of what we've put into this instrument and how, where I'm from, and the connections I have to it and the lineage that I carry, I don't need to prove anything to anybody.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: But it was the music that gave me that grounding as a North Carolinian.

That's why I say, "You know, I'm North Carolina, Black, White, yellow, whatever.

I'm North Carolinian," and I, that's enough for me.

GATES: My two guests both grew up in the South, in and around the same places where their ancestors had lived for centuries.

But both came to me knowing little about the lives of those ancestors.

It was time for that to change.

I started with Danielle and with her father, Rickey Deadwyler, a railroad supervisor who provided for his family and inspired his daughter with his tireless devotion to his job.

DEADWYLER: My dad was a freaking workaholic.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: You know?

The, the working for the railroad in the capacity in which he did, it's 24/7, you're on call all the time.

If there's a derailment or a anything happening, he had to be there.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Uh, he traveled a lot, and I understood that to, to, you know, be how stability was made.

He had to go to work, so I get that.

I get that discipline.

I get that, straight focus.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: Do you know much about his roots?

DEADWYLER: Not, not a wealth.

GATES: Did he talk much about them?

DEADWYLER: Here and there.

GATES: Rickey's reticence may well have been due to the fact that the Deadwylers have very complicated roots.

Indeed, digging into his family tree, we encountered a series of mysteries that we struggled mightily to solve.

The first begins with Rickey's grandmother, a woman named Hattie Mae Deadwyler.

Records show that Hattie Mae married Rickey's grandfather, Roy Lee Hall, in 1932, when she claimed to be 19 years old.

But we're not sure that's correct.

The paper trail varies as to what year Hattie was born, ranging from 1911 to 1917.

Meaning that she could've been as old as 21, or as young as 15.

So sometimes she would be 21, sometimes 15.

Can you imagine getting married when you're 15 years old?

DEADWYLER: That's some Zora Neale Hurston stuff right there.

GATES: That's right.

10 years, she just like... DEADWYLER: Like, "I don't need to know how old I am."

GATES: That's right.

DEADWYLER: "It's none of your business, but I'm here."

GATES: That's right.

And I am 10 years... DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: ...oh, one day wake up and, "Wow, I feel lighter."

DEADWYLER: Yeah, I... GATES: 10 years younger.

DEADWYLER: Exactly.

I dig it.

GATES: Though we don't know Hattie's exact age, we did discover something curious about her marriage to Roy.

In the 1940 census, we found their son, Imel, living with an uncle.

But Hattie and Roy were not in the same house.

DEADWYLER: Oh, hmm.

GATES: So what do you think's going on there?

DEADWYLER: Well, I guess I, I don't know.

GATES: Well, we have a theory.

When the census was recorded, Hattie appears to have been living with her sister, Gladys, in Athens.

And when we went looking for Roy, we came across something surprising.

Please turn the page.

DEADWYLER: That was a dramatic use of your hand.

Oh.

GATES: This is from the Georgia State Archives.

Would you please read that transcribed section?

DEADWYLER: "Marriage license, Roy Lee Hall and Lillie Mae Strange were joined in matrimony this 31st day of December 1939."

GATES: Mm, your great-grandfather got married to another woman.

DEADWYLER: Yep.

GATES: And guess what?

DEADWYLER: What?

GATES: We found no record of a divorce.

DEADWYLER: Okay.

GATES: So it is, of course, possible that they never divorced at all, mm.

DEADWYLER: Hmm.

GATES: So what do you think happened to Roy and Hattie's relationship?

DEADWYLER: It's Georgia.

It's the '30s and '40s.

I, who knows?

GATES: Yeah.

DEADWYLER: Um, who knows?

GATES: Who knows?

DEADWYLER: Who knows?

GATES: Danielle is right.

There's no way to know what came between Hattie and Roy.

But their son, Imel, was raised with his mother's surname, and Roy Lee Hall seems to have been forgotten.

Ironically, Roy's death certificate reveals that his own name stem from similar circumstances.

DEADWYLER: Date of death, 08/14/1971.

Place of death, Wilkinson, Georgia.

Father's name, Rogers Lowe.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Mother's maiden name, Mattie Lou Hall.

GATES: Roy died from heart trouble... DEADWYLER: Mm.

GATES: ...at the age of 57.

DEADWYLER: My father's grandfather.

GATES: Your father's grandfather.

DEADWYLER: And then you see his father's name and his mother's name.

GATES: That's right.

DEADWYLER: Oh, man.

Okay.

GATES: Can you read their names for me again?

DEADWYLER: Rogers Lowe, Mattie Lou Hall.

GATES: And do you notice anything about those names?

DEADWYLER: Yep.

GATES: They don't share... DEADWYLER: They got their mother's name.

GATES: Yes.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: They don't share the same surname.

DEADWYLER: Nope.

GATES: That's another generation of your father's family who did not take their father's surname.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

DEADWYLER: Wild.

GATES: We now set out to see what became of Roy's father, Rogers, and encountered a situation that was painfully familiar.

In the 1920 census, Roy is listed as a five-year-old boy living in the house of his mother, Mattie Lou Hall, and her parents.

But Rogers Lowe is not living with the family.

So we wonder what in the world is going on here.

Would you please turn the page?

DEADWYLER: This is getting more and more dramatic as it goes.

GATES: Would you please read the transcribed section?

DEADWYLER: Lowe, Roger, head of household, age 21, occupation, laborer, bauxite mining.

Annie, wife, age 24.

Ivy L., son, age three and one month.

Gordon, son, age two and two months.

Sadie B., daughter, age four months.

GATES: And you recognize that Roger Lowe... DEADWYLER: Yes.

GATES: Roger Lowe is Roy's father.

DEADWYLER: Yes.

GATES: But he has a wife and three children in another town.

Rogers married a woman named Annie Mae Davis in 1915.

Your great-grandfather Roy wasn't even two years old when he married another woman.

DEADWYLER: Mm-hmm.

GATES: How does it feel to see that?

DEADWYLER: People.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Right?

They're people.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: History makes it look all, you know, distant and... GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: ...you know, but this is, oh, it's just humans making human decisions.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Flawed, beautiful, continuing with life.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: But they want some love, apparently.

GATES: Right.

DEADWYLER: And they gonna go get it.

(laughing).

GATES: We had now traced Danielle's father's roots back over 100 years, uncovering a pattern that crossed multiple generations, a pattern of absent fathers, of mothers being left to pick up the pieces, and of children forced to get by without a parent.

DEADWYLER: This is interesting.

GATES: So, seeing this pattern laid out, does it change the way that you think of your own father, since he broke that pattern?

DEADWYLER: Sure.

Yeah.

He's, he's the man who wants to be committed to family.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Yeah, to a kind of structure.

GATES: Do you think there's cause and effect, that he's reacting against... DEADWYLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GATES: Yeah.

DEADWYLER: Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You often think that you need to do the opposite thing that you've witnessed that doesn't work.

GATES: Yeah.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: I had one final detail to share with Danielle, the source of her distinctive surname.

We were able to trace the Deadwyler family back almost two centuries, to Danielle's third great-grandfather, Gaines Deadwyler, who was born in Georgia around 1840.

Seeing this mapped out proved thrilling to Danielle, as did the realization that she's only a Deadwyler thanks to her great-grandmother Hattie, who chose to pass on her own surname rather than that of her husband.

DEADWYLER: It's cool.

It's like we don't have to adhere to, you know, these structures and traditions.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Uh, and starting with your name... GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: ....is critical.

You know?

I, August Wilson wrote his name, right, when he first, when he first started, when he got his typewriter from his, the gift of $20 from his sister.

The first thing he wanted to see was his name.

GATES: Yeah.

DEADWYLER: So he typed his name.

So the idea that the, the first thing, the thing that my great-grandmother did was, "I'ma maintain my name."

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: "My child is gonna maintain, you know my name.

And that persists for my, you know, great-grandchild."

Like, it's like you get to define how you wanna be in the world.

GATES: That's a great way to put it.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: Yeah.

DEADWYLER: Yeah, and that's pretty dope.

GATES: Much like Danielle, Rhiannon Giddens has an ancestor who utterly redefined her family, but the story starts closer to home.

In 1970, just three years after interracial marriage was legalized in the United States, Rhiannon's father, Paul Giddens, dismayed his parents and grandparents by marrying Rhiannon's mother, and soon found himself disowned.

The fracture might've been permanent, but after the birth of the couple's first child, Paul's mother made a choice.

GIDDENS: My sister was his mother Margaret's first grandchild.

GATES: Oh.

GIDDENS: And his, you know, it's like I always say, one person can change the tenor of an entire family.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: Right?

So his, his, my grandmother, Grandma Giddens, she was a God-fearing woman, only book in the house was the Bible, you know?

And she, like, was concerned, you know?

She wouldn't have been hateful, but she was concerned, like, "What about the children?"

You know?

GATES: Mm, yeah.

GIDDENS: When he married Mom.

But then my sister came along, and she had a, you know, she had a decision in that time.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: "I can be a bigot or not."

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: And she went for love.

GATES: That's great.

GIDDENS: And she's just, she was just love incarnate.

And in, you know, that's not to say things were smooth on that side of the family, 'cause they were not.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: But because she was a beacon, you know, and she wholeheartedly supported him and his choice of family, I think that then had branches that then sort of blossomed as the years passed.

She was a, a pretty amazing woman.

GATES: Unfortunately, Margaret's attitude was not shared by her mother, a woman named Edith Hanner.

Edith never accepted her grandson's marriage, and as a result, Rhiannon knew very little about Edith.

She'd been told that Edith was married to a man named George Clifton Hanner, and she'd also heard that there was a moonshiner in her past.

But beyond that, Edith was a mystery, one that Rhiannon had never been inclined to explore.

GIDDENS: She didn't really, I never really felt like, she thought of us the same as the other grandkids.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: Um, like at Christmastime, it was a very marked difference in presents and things, you know?

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: Um, so we went out to visit occasionally, um, to, as, you know, 'cause it was family.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: But it was not, we, we had a hard time going out there sometimes.

GATES: Oh, that's too bad, and I'm sorry about that.

GIDDENS: Eh, that's like the time and the life and the whatever, you know?

GATES: Have you heard any stories about her relationship with George?

GIDDENS: No.

GATES: Could you please turn the page?

GIDDENS: Okay.

GATES: This is a newspaper article published in the "Greensboro Daily Record."

GIDDENS: Oh my God.

GATES: May 27th... GIDDENS: Yes.

GATES: ...1929.

GIDDENS: This is the moonshiner.

GATES: That's right.

George was 23 years old.

GIDDENS: I didn't know he was arrested.

GATES: He had been married to Edith for about three years.

Would you please read that transcribed section in the white box?

GIDDENS: "Cliff Hanner was arrested by county officers Saturday night when they found the worm of a still in his possession.

The officers were on an expedition in the vicinity of Tabernacle Church when they caught Hanner.

He will be given a hearing tomorrow afternoon."

GATES: Your great-grandfather was arrested for possessing one of the key components of a Still... GIDDENS: Yes.

GATES: ...during Prohibition.

GIDDENS: I see.

Well, it's funny because Grandma was a total teetotaler.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: You know?

GATES: Oh, what a shock.

GIDDENS: I mean, it's like... GATES: Oh, yeah.

GIDDENS: ...it's, it's, it's a funny, it's a funny thing.

Um, wow.

GATES: We found over a dozen news articles reporting that Rhiannon's great-grandfather, George, was, in fact, involved in distilling and selling his own alcohol.

And this was only the beginning of his problems.

GIDDENS: "Matters of record, Municipal County Court, George C. Hanner, drunk, 30 days suspended."

GATES: Your great-grandfather was convicted of public drunkenness.

Have you ever heard anything about that?

GIDDENS: No.

I mean, you know, he's a moonshiner, so I guess, you know, he's drinking his own stuff.

I don't know.

GATES: Well, this story is more complicated than it might seem.

GIDDENS: Hmm.

GATES: Could you please turn the page?

This record we found in the State Archives of North Carolina.

Would you please read that transcribed section?

GIDDENS: Yes.

"Edith Wilson Hanner versus G.C.

Hanner.

Have the plaintiff and the defendant been separated for two years?

Answer, yes.

Edith Wilson Hanner, the plaintiff, is hereby granted an absolute divorce from the defendant, G.C.

Hanner, this the 16th day of December, 1946."

GATES: When George was convicted in the record we just saw, your great-grandparents had just separated.

GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: What's it like to learn that?

GIDDENS: Um, it's just the, it's the story of, it's the sad story of a life unraveling.

GATES: Records show that George and Edith were separated for at least two years prior to their divorce, and during those years, George was cited for public drunkenness at least three more times.

But it turns out that Edith had secrets of her own.

GIDDENS: Oh, boy.

(laughing).

GATES: So this is the year before George and Edith got divorced.

Would you please read that transcribed section?

GIDDENS: Well, well, Edith.

"Sherman M. Amick and Edith Minnie Hanner were charged with occupying a room at 221 South Green Street for immoral purposes."

GATES: Whoa.

GIDDENS: Wow, all right, mm-hmm.

I'm not gonna, I'm not going down the road of he, she drove him to drink, but... So it shows that there was maybe multiple reasons... GATES: That's right.

GIDDENS: ...for a divorce.

GATES: Does your great-grandmother become more interesting now than now that you've turned the page?

GIDDENS: I mean, that's definitely... No, I wasn't expecting that.

That's for sure.

GATES: According to this article, in May of 1945, Rhiannon's great-grandmother was arrested in Greensboro for renting a room with a man named Sherman Amick, who was known around town as "Snake."

GIDDENS: Snake!

What?

Edith, wow.

All right.

Now she got interesting.

(laughing).

GATES: He also was a convicted bootlegger.

GIDDENS: Oh, well, she, yeah, wow, okay.

GATES: And he and Edith had a relationship.

GIDDENS: Clearly.

GATES: Any family stories about that?

GIDDENS: I have, not that I have heard.

Not that have come down to me.

GATES: So now think about this.

At the time, Edith was still technically married to your great-grandfather.

GIDDENS: Mm-hmm.

GATES: Even though they were separated.

Um, so what do you make, I mean, this is scandal in the paper.

GIDDENS: Yeah, I mean, if it's, it's happening during the separation, you know, it's kinda like there's a little bit of gray area there because they've already announced the intent to, to divorce.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: So she may feel like I'm, you know, not legally a free woman, but, like, morally I'm a free woman because I'm, you know... GATES: Yeah.

GIDDENS: So.

GATES: They were separated.

GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: Yeah.

GIDDENS: I, I can understand that.

GATES: We don't know what happened to the case against Edith; the court records have been lost, but it seems that she moved on from Snake.

Roughly a year after she was arrested with him and just a week after her divorce from George was finalized, Edith married a man named Paul May, whom Rhiannon met on multiple occasions, causing her to reconsider her great-grandmother once more.

GIDDENS: It doesn't make me, you know, warm to her in the phase that I knew her, but it makes me interested in her life, you know?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: 'Cause, like, everybody has a life before they're old, you know what I mean?

GATES: Sure.

GIDDENS: Everybody was young.

GATES: If they're lucky.

GIDDENS: If they're lucky, everybody was young.

Everybody, you know, had youthful peccadillos or whatever, and it does help humanize people to, like, hear these, these kind of stories, you know?

GATES: All right, let's return then to your great-grandfather George, charged with public drunkenness at least twice after Edith remarried.

GIDDENS: Right.

GATES: Do you know what happened to him after that?

GIDDENS: I don't.

GATES: Please turn the page.

GIDDENS: Something tells me you do.

GATES: And now you do.

Would you please read the transcribed section?

GIDDENS: "In the Superior Court of Greensboro division, 1958, the court, finding as a fact that defendants George Clifton Hanner, Garland Clayton Reese, Harry Ray Stewart.

Reese was convicted of Hanner and Stewart entered pleas of guilty to the illegal possession of non-tax-paid liquor in the amount of 60 gallons."

GATES: 60 gallons.

GIDDENS: Man, he just can't stay away.

GATES: No.

In the wake of this arrest, George pleaded guilty and was given two concurrent one-year sentences in a North Carolina prison.

He would die of a heart attack at age 63, but the story of his grim fate drew Rhiannon's thoughts to something far more hopeful, the larger trajectory of her father's family.

GIDDENS: It's like a family's either going down or it's going up.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: And, and sometimes it, it can be because of one person.

So it's like going back to my grandmother, you know, she kind of grew up with this... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...chaotic, you know?

GATES: Oh, yeah.

GIDDENS: I know at one point they were homeless and, you know, this, this chaotic life.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: And to raise three children that, you know, lived, have been living, you know, my, my uncle sadly has passed, but have lived pretty great lives, and their children are all doing, like, really amazing things.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: So it's like there's a, there's a way to go.

It doesn't always have to be one way.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: You know?

But, like, it can be that, that matriarch... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...that can really make that difference, you know, in, in where a family's going.

DEADWYLER: We'd already traced Danielle Deadwyler back to her third great-grandfather, Gaines Deadwyler, who likely passed away sometime around 1900.

Now, turning to another branch of her father's family tree, we were able to go back even further, mapping a line that stretched almost two centuries into the past.

DEADWYLER: Second Great-grandfather, Lathie Stanley.

Third Great-grandmother.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: Martha Stanley.

Fourth Great-grandfather, Sprig Stanley.

Fifth Great-grandfather... Let me tell you something about these names.

GATES: They're poetic, aren't they?

DEADWYLER: They, they, the, the Southerners, they, they come with it.

GATES: No, that's true.

DEADWYLER: Sprig.

GATES: Sprig.

DEADWYLER: Mm, okay.

GATES: Your fifth great-grandfather, that is your great-great-great-great-great grandfather, now... DEADWYLER: That's wild.

GATES: ...when you sat down here, did you think that we would be able to get back to your fifth great-grandfather on your daddy's side?

DEADWYLER: No, I, I had no clue, I had no clue.

GATES: Naming Danielle's fifth great-grandfather was one thing.

Researching his life would prove far more complicated, as we immediately confronted one of the greatest of all genealogical challenges, identifying ancestors who were trapped in slavery.

Enslaved people were almost never listed by name in federal documents, and Sprig Stanley was born around 1830, so he was almost certainly enslaved.

Our best chance to learn about him was to find him in the records of the people who may have owned him, and in the 1860 census for Georgia, we uncovered a clue, a slave schedule for a White planter named Edward M. Stanley.

It lists nine enslaved people, not by name, only by age, color, and gender.

At the time, Sprig would've been about 30 years old.

DEADWYLER: Okay.

GATES: So you see anyone about that age?

DEADWYLER: Yes, yes.

GATES: We believe that you're looking at your fifth great-grandfather, Sprig.

DEADWYLER: Okay, okay.

GATES: Who is a nameless mark.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

Yeah.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

DEADWYLER: You know... I'm, I, yeah, I'm, I'm quieted in that, you know, it, it's, uh... It's confusing, it's upsetting, it's, um... You see all the, the textures on the skin of something.

GATES: If this hash mark does in fact represent Sprig, it means that in 1860, he was owned by Edward M. Stanley, who was then only 12 years old.

This suggests that Edward likely inherited Sprig.

So we went looking for estate records that might give us more information, and it didn't take long for our search to pay off.

DEADWYLER: "R.L.

Cumming, guardian of Edward M. Stanley, minor, heir of James R. Stanley, deceased..." GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: "...received from the estate of James R. Stanley the following property on the 16th December 1858.

Sprigs, man, aged 28 years, valued at $1,000."

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

(heavy sigh).

GATES: This record is part of the probate file of Edward's father, a man named James R. Stanley.

It indicates that Edward received Sprig from James' estate in December of 1858.

Digging deeper, we found the will of James' father from March of 1841, and saw that Sprig had been one of the Stanley family's possessions for decades.

Indeed, James had inherited Sprig from his father.

DEADWYLER: "I give and bequeath unto my son, James R. Stanley, his heirs and assigns, the following Negros: Ned, Jenny, Lewis, and Betsy, and their increase, all of which he has already in possession, also, after the death or widowhood of my wife, Jim, Mary, Sprig, and Molly, and their increase, to him and his heirs forever."

GATES: "Forever."

What do you think Sprig must have been feeling toward the three generations of this family who owned him?

DEADWYLER: Ugh.

Not too connected.

GATES: Mm.

DEADWYLER: Not too connected.

GATES: We had now reconstructed much of Sprig's life in slavery, but there was one haunting detail still to share.

The 1880 federal census indicates that Sprig and his parents, Danielle's unnamed sixth great-grandparents, were all born in Virginia, meaning that Sprig was likely transported south to Georgia as a young boy.

But we don't know if his parents came with him, and we could find no evidence that they did.

DEADWYLER: Yeah.

GATES: No way that didn't affect him.

DEADWYLER: Surely, surely.

GATES: I mean, what's it like to think that your ancestor may have been separated from his parents when he was a child and never saw them again?

I mean, can you imagine?

DEADWYLER: I, I, I mean, losing my mother was the most, horrific idea that I thought of as a kid.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

DEADWYLER: You know?

I didn't wanna, sometimes I didn't wanna stay at my grandparents' house because I'd be in the dark, and 'cause I was in Athens and I'd much rather be in Atlanta.

GATES: Sure, yeah.

DEADWYLER: But, because we, we, we need them.

And so... he was a boy in the dark.

GATES: There was a final twist to this story, a happy one.

When freedom finally came, Sprig settled down on a farm with his wife and children, but that wasn't all that he did.

In 1867, Black men in Georgia were given the right to vote, and despite a rising tide of White resistance, Sprig bravely chose to exercise that right.

DEADWYLER: "Date of registry, June 29th, 1867.

Names of voters, Stanley, Sprig, colored."

Boom.

(laughter).

Yeah.

GATES: As soon as he could... DEADWYLER: Yep.

GATES: ...your fifth great-grandfather registered to vote.

DEADWYLER: Yep.

GATES: And they were threatened.

They risked their lives.

DEADWYLER: Did it anyway.

GATES: 'Cause those former Confederates did not want him, 'cause that was Black power.

DEADWYLER: Yeah, this is, this is, this is so rich.

This is so rich.

GATES: And Danielle, he couldn't even read or write.

DEADWYLER: This is the richest, yeah.

GATES: He did it anyway.

DEADWYLER: Did it anyway.

GATES: Yep.

DEADWYLER: Sprig, yeah.

GATES: Just like Danielle, Rhiannon Giddens knew that she had ancestors who'd been enslaved.

In fact, she'd tried to research them in connection with her music and hit the same brick wall that so many people hit, but that did not deter us.

And when we focused on Rhiannon's maternal third great-grandfather, a man named William Reisor, we got lucky.

We found William and his mother, Hannah Reisor, in the 1870 census for Clarke County, Alabama, and in the 1860 census for that same county, we found the slave schedule for a White farmer named Dicey Reisor.

As we'd seen, these schedules are challenging to interpret.

The entries on them do not contain names, only notations for age, color, and gender.

But given what we knew about Rhiannon's ancestors, two entries stood out.

So, do you see anyone who might be around 28 or around 48 years old?

GIDDENS: Well, there's a male, 28, and then a female, 50.

GATES: That's right.

GIDDENS: Yeah, which of course, like, the, the ages are probably approximate anyway.

GATES: Of course.

GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: So what's it like to see that, to think that those marks might be your family?

GIDDENS: Yeah, I mean... GATES: I mean, listed there, robbed of their names.

GIDDENS: Yeah, I... GATES: Just identified as property on a separate slave schedule.

GIDDENS: Yeah, I mean, cash, basically.

GATES: Yeah.

GIDDENS: Um, yeah.

It's, the reality of it.

GATES: We now begin to search for evidence that these hash marks did, in fact, represent Rhiannon's family, and we soon uncovered the estate records of Dicey Reisor's father, a man named Noah Dykes.

They list Rhiannon's fourth great-grandmother, Hanna, by name, bringing Rhiannon a measure of deep satisfaction.

GIDDENS: It's amazing to have a name.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: 'Cause names are so difficult.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: You know?

We're so nameless so often.

GATES: Right.

GIDDENS: Um... GATES: And that's, a way of empowering... GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: ...the people who control names.

GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: ...and disempowering the people whose name you can take away.

GIDDENS: Exactly.

So you hear the, you know, you hear female, age 48, you know, that means nothing.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: When you hear Hanna... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...you, you can, your mind conjures up somebody.

GATES: Tragically, the same records that preserve Hanna's name also detail the depth of her suffering.

When her owner passed away in 1832, his will gave Hanna and her young son Ben to one of his children, while Hanna's daughter Violet was bequeathed to another child, meaning that Hanna's family was broken up.

GIDDENS: It's crazy.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: It's just crazy.

GATES: It is.

GIDDENS: It's like, why are people surprised that we're falling apart?

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: It's just crazy.

You know what I mean?

GATES: Yeah.

GIDDENS: It's like there was a whole system with receipts.

You could get a receipt for a person.

GATES: Yeah.

GIDDENS: You could put an ad in the paper for a person.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: That's bananas.

GATES: It is.

GIDDENS: And for hundreds of years, and we wonder why we're, like, completely insane?

Wow.

GATES: This is as far back as we could trace Rhiannon's Reisor ancestors.

Turning to another branch of her mother's family tree, the Hatwoods, we wanted to see if we could go further.

We were expecting yet again to hit the brick wall of slavery, but we were in for a surprise.

In the 1860 census for North Carolina, Rhiannon's fourth great-grandfather, a man named Alfred Hatwood, is listed by name, along with the names of his family.

GIDDENS: Alfred Hatwood, age 58, mulatto, occupation farmer, value of real estate $500, value of personal estate 150.

Mary, age 56, mulatto, occupation housekeeper.

Jehu, age 20, mulatto, occupation laborer.

Katie, age 15, mulatto.

Lovina, age 12, mulatto.

John, age 6, mulatto.

GATES: And what year is this census?

GIDDENS: 1860.

GATES: And the Civil War breaks out in 1861.

GIDDENS: Yeah, so he's free.

GATES: He was free.

GIDDENS: Mm.

GATES: The Hatwood branch of your family was freed before the Civil War.

GIDDENS: Hmm.

And in North Carolina, that's pretty, that's pretty crazy.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: How did they do that?

GATES: We don't know how the Hatwoods became free, but Alfred's story is incredible.

In 1810, when he was roughly seven years old, Alfred was indentured as an apprentice to work for a White farmer.

His indenture agreement states that in exchange for housing and food, he was to labor without pay until his 21st birthday.

The agreement also indicates that Alfred was an orphan, so he likely had no family support awaiting him once his indenture ended.

The odds against him having any kind of success were enormous, but somehow Alfred beat those odds.

In the 1850 census, we found him on a farm in Chatham County, North Carolina, living with his wife and nine children.

GIDDENS: Mm.

GATES: Alfred was an orphan; now he's head of a household full of kids.

GIDDENS: Good Lord.

GATES: What's it like to see that?

GIDDENS: I, I, it makes me, it makes me really happy because, I really believe that to be of the South is to hold infinite storylines.

GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: You know?

Every single story, like, adds shades and complexity to the Southern story, you know?

There's, there's, we tend to talk about things like, you know, the Civil War and slavery... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...and, like, that's the South.

And it's like there were just lots of people having things happen to them.

GATES: Yeah.

GIDDENS: You know, and, and trying to live their lives.

GATES: But it also shows us that there were cracks and fissures in the simple binary world that we've constructed... GIDDENS: Exactly.

GATES: ...between Black and White... GIDDENS: Mm-hmm.

GATES: ...and slave and free.

GIDDENS: Yep.

GATES: And your family is living in that, those cracks and fissures.

GIDDENS: Absolutely.

GATES: Big time.

We had one more record to share with Rhiannon, a record that would add another layer of complexity to her distinctly Southern story.

Turning back to her father's roots, we focused on her fourth great-grandfather, a man named Henry Shoffner.

Henry was born around 1806 in North Carolina, and in the 1850 census, we saw that he was very much a man of his era.

GIDDENS: Name of slave owner, Henry Shoffner.

One Black female age 29, one Black female age 27, one Black male age 11, one Black female age eight, one Black female age six, one Black male age three, one Black male age 11 months.

GATES: Had you ever thought about the slave owners on, in your family tree?

GIDDENS: You know, I knew there was a chance, I figured there weren't, I figured just 'cause people were poor... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...there was probably not a lot of it, you know, just 'cause, you know, that, that was wealth... GATES: Uh-huh.

GIDDENS: ...was owning people.

GATES: Uh-huh.

GIDDENS: And you would've if you could've.

GATES: Right, absolutely.

GIDDENS: You know what I'm saying?

Um, so yeah, I mean, I suspected as much.

GATES: Yeah.

You descend from enslaved people on your mother's side... GIDDENS: Mm-hmm.

GATES: ...and enslavers... GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: ...owners of enslaved people, on your father's side.

GIDDENS: Yeah.

GATES: Which puts you in a very interesting position... GIDDENS: Mm-hmm.

GATES: ...you know, as the, a mixed-race person, and your relationship to slavery is, bifurcated.

GIDDENS: Complicated.

Complicated and bifurcated.

GATES: Yeah, you got it.

The paper trail had run out for each of my guests.

GIDDENS: Oh, wow, that's so cool.

GATES: It was time to show them their full family trees.

These are all the ancestors.

Now filled with people whose names they'd never heard before.

GIDDENS: Wow.

GATES: For each, it was a moment of pride... DEADWYLER: It's beautiful.

GATES: ...offering the chance to reflect on the men and women who shaped them to the core.

What do you think all these ancestors would've made of you?

(laughs).

GIDDENS: Who knows?

It would be the gamut of, "What has that one done?"

Um, I'd like to think that they appreciate that I'm, I wanna repres... you know, I wanna represent and, and talk about all of them... GATES: Mm-hmm.

GIDDENS: ...and not just some of them.

GATES: Well, I think that... GIDDENS: You know?

GATES: I hear, the church saying "amen."

GIDDENS: Yeah, I mean, this is the fullness of, you know, who we are.

Just because society says you have to choose doesn't mean that you actually do.

GATES: My time with my guests was drawing to a close, but I still had a surprise left for Danielle.

When we compared her DNA to that of others who'd been in the series, we found a match, evidence of a distant cousin she never knew she had.

(laughing).

That is Rebecca Hall.

DEADWYLER: I am gagged.

Do you know we share a birthday?

GATES: Really?

DEADWYLER: Yes.

GATES: How do you know that?

DEADWYLER: I met Rebecca.

GATES: Wow.

DEADWYLER: And we, I, I, I mean, it was a thing for me to be like, "Oh, we have the same birthday."

GATES: Well, you have more than that.

You got a lot of DNA in common.

DEADWYLER: This is a gag.

GATES: Danielle shares a long segment of DNA with celebrated actor Rebecca Hall, whose mother was roughly 20% Sub-Saharan African.

Rebecca Hall... DEADWYLER: Wow.

GATES: ...just got Blacker in her own mind, without a doubt.

DEADWYLER: Stop, stop, she Black.

You, we, we know.

There, it's in there, but goodness gracious, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have guessed.

GATES: No, I told you.

DEADWYLER: I wouldn't have guessed.

GATES: She would be so happy.

DEADWYLER: We're birthday twins, and we're cousins.

GATES: That's amazing, that is amazing.

That's the end of our journey with Danielle Deadwyler and Rhiannon Giddens.

Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of "Finding Your Roots."