April 20 was a beautiful, sunny day and the public was streaming into the tents erected in front of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. NARA’s annual Genealogy Fair was well underway, and this was the fourth year that I organized exhibits for both our Washington, DC Family History Center and FamilySearch.org.
Our laptops were humming with wireless internet, and FamilySearch.org was yielding an amazing number of “hits” as we searched for ancestors of the various people who stopped by our booth. As the hours elapsed, our volunteers talked themselves hoarse. Over 3,000 people came to the fair on that first day, and we talked with hundreds who were seeking to learn more about the Church’s most popular website.
The volunteers at our booths didn’t have a specific strategy for approaching or helping patrons; whoever was available would assist an individual. And that is what made my encounter with Michelle especially providential.
It was lunchtime, and people were standing two and three deep at our booth. After helping one patron, I impulsively left the back of our table and walked into the crowd, offering to answer questions or assist with a computer lookup. It was at that moment that a lovely African-American woman caught my eye and approached me. Her name was Michelle, and she had just started researching her family six weeks ago. She related, with great animation, that she was amazed at the amount of information she was finding online. “I’m descended from one of the first African-Americans who went west on the wagon train with Brigham Young,” she said excitedly. Stunned, I asked if she knew the name of that ancestor. “Green Flake,” she replied.
As she hurriedly sketched a 6-generation pedigree chart linking herself to this pioneer, I knew that our conversation was not happenstance. For six years, I had been the Chairperson of the Black History Month commemorations held at the Washington Temple Visitors’ Center. Among the many people who had participated in those events were Darius Gray and Margaret Young, historians who had delved deeply into the records and written extensively about the first black families to settle in Utah (see interview). Foremost among these pioneers was Green Flake, a former slave and convert to the LDS Church who rode in the first wagon to enter Emigration Canyon on July 21, 1847.
“I can connect you with the historians who have researched this family extensively,” I said emotionally. “They have photographs and a complete family history about Green Flake and his descendants. They have written books, a play and numerous articles. They can tell you everything about him. ” Her eyes widened as she threw her arms around me. “What are the chances,” I asked, “that you would come to this very table at this very moment and just happen to talk to me rather than anyone else at our booth?”
We stared at each other, speechless. And then she hugged me again.
Carol Kostakos Petranek is one of the Directors of the Washington DC Family History Center and a Volunteer at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.