Category: A Tribute

As Mother’s Day approaches, I would like to honor the women who represent my maternal line.  Autosomal DNA testing has revealed that the haplogroup for these strong God fearing women is L3e2a.  These women represent women who were proud descendants of African women who lived life and nurtured  their families and those in their community sometimes under the most difficult circumstances.                 They endured the first middle passage from Africa and then a second middle passage to Louisiana. They survived generations of enslavement, lived through wars, reconstruction, and endured the grave injustices of the the Jim Crow south.  My 4th great grandmother Lytha Bryant and her daughter Francis were both enslaved. Josiah Gray and Hardy and Caroline Perry  where among the owners. I will say that throughout all of this, the family of  Lytha Bryant and her husband Nelson Taylor (b. Virginia) remained…