[ambient music] [insects chirping] [solemn music] [footsteps crunching] [solemn music continues] - The memory of what transpired, it bears being repeated.

It bears being shared.

[insects chirping] [solemn music] Pop Pop, I'm standing in front of your house listening to Grandma Z's voice and your voice and that history that you guys gave us that we are passing on to the generations that come behind.

- [Negest] Some of you have been asking me about your family tree, your great-grandmother.

Was she a [indistinct]?

[group chattering] [water rushing] [birds chirping] [paper crackling] - This country was built on slavery, but it was written out of narratives.

When most Americans walk on these trails along the Potomac, they see kayaks, they see jet skis, yachts.

What I see, what I carry with me is, is a dark history.

[calm music] Where I live now is actually blocks away from where my ancestors, brothers and sisters, uncles, nieces and nephews were shipped off to Louisiana.

They were sold by the Jesuits to save Georgetown University.

- Georgetown University exists because the Jesuits sold human beings.

The Jesuits came to America in search of religious freedom.

I don't know how they could in turn steal someone else's.

[calm music] To see the names of former enslavers of members of my family elevated in such a way is really disheartening.

The assumption is that they did great things, that everything that they did was great, and it wasn't.

[birds chirping] [lively music] [lively music continues] [water lapping] Several years ago, we saw an article about the Jesuit sale in a paper, and reading it, I knew it was our family.

I felt this need to find the generations that were lost, a need that has never gone away, that will never go away.

- I can feel the ancestors' hands on my back, guiding me, pushing me.

We all feel their presence in the land around us.

When I see the sugarcane fields that still grow in Louisiana today, I see them.

I feel the ancestors.

[lively music] [rain pattering] They would work from can't see to can't see, sunup to sundown, and then have to come back and, you know, feed their families and get some sleep and get up and start all over again.

[water lapping] [birds chirping] - I'm wondering if they watched the ship sail away knowing that this would be the last time that they saw each other.

1838 seems like a lifetime away, but it's really not so distant.

[lively music] - Hey, everybody!

Trying to get everybody into the room.

We gonna have us a good night tonight.

All right, David.

- Good evening, everyone.

My name's David.

I'm from Central New Jersey.

I grew up in Prince George County.

So far I'm connected to the Mahoneys, Butlers, Queens, Hawkins.

- Hills.

- Hills.

- Mahoney.

- Mahoney.

- Barnes.

- Barnes.

- Hawkins.

- Hawkins.

- Yorkshire and Mason.

- Hawkins and Queens.

- And we connect to just about all the families that were mentioned.

- [Karran] I decided that I would host the call once a week to bring some of the descendants together.

[lively music] All of the people who joined the call have some little piece of this puzzle.

[lively music continues] - I literally traveled to every archive in Maryland to find the docket trail.

This is my great-grandmother, Phyllis Queen.

Her blood still courses through my veins today, and it's been confirmed through DNA studies.

[lively music continues] - Len, male, age about 40 years, sickly.

William, a male, age about two years.

Oh, wow, here I see Kitty Hawkins.

My husband descends from Hawkins.

As African Americans, oftentimes it's difficult to find our people within the records, and DNA helps us to go further back than we ever thought we could.

[lively music] - [Jerome] I'm looking at DNA chromosome by chromosome to find some common ancestor.

[lively music continues] As we uncover history that was taken away, we can tell our ancestors' stories on their behalf.

- We're here standing on land that the Jesuits owned, where my great-great-great grandmother, Louisa Mahoney, and her family were enslaved.

[lively music continues] Louisa hid in woods like this for about three days to escape the sale, and even though she did so, Louisa lost all of her siblings.

[lively music continues] I am from this part of the country because she escaped into the woods, and that's not lost on me.

[lively music continues] But this is a story of resilience, and I think that this story is as important as any other story about the founding of America.

[lively music continues] So, you know, you see the line in the documents where they try to tell people, "We tried to convince them that they are happy."

- No, my favorite one is this, [chuckles] when they talk about the people who were disagreeable, I love it, because they, and they sound so shocked that she was disagreeable to her own enslavement.

[Karran laughing] - [Karran] Doing these calls, it's like you're meeting your ancestors every week, learning more about the life that they lived.

- It's crazy that there other people just as crazy as I am that stay up past midnight doing the same work, looking for the same people.

[group chattering] We're on an endless journey to try to give them a voice, uncover their past, to find each other.

[birds chirping] - I think about what could've happened had we never been enslaved, had no one ever been sold.

How many recipes could they have shared with me?

How many aunties and uncles have I missed gaining wisdom from, how many cousins?

That's the pain of enslavement that I think is in all of us.

[solemn music] And there are times when I have to step away, but the ancestors pull me back.

[solemn music continues] [birds chirping] - [Participant] Multiple Nelly Mahoneys, but right, there's so many Nellys.

- Mm-hmm.

- I don't know who I'm related to.

[participant laughs] - Everybody.

- [Participant] I think I'm related to all of you.

That's why I'm hanging out with you.

- That's all right.

- You're my family tonight.

- All y'all know it's midnight, right?

[laughs] - Past midnight here.

[laughs] - It's 4 o'clock here.

- I'm so glad you're here.

- So are y'all East Coast people?

- Yeah, my hope is that, you know, it's sessions like this, it's collaboration.

It's everybody coming up with the pieces, Shelby coming up with WikiTree and Euro instead of World 9.

I mean, it's all of that.

It's all of that little pieces.

Somebody's gonna come up with the little nugget that's gonna help us move the ball down the field, and if we keep pounding on it, we're gonna get this wall to come down.

We just gotta keep pounding at it.

- Yeah, that's right.

- Mm-hmm.

So I'm gonna use that, that forcefulness that you gave me to give my people back what they lost.

How about that, you know?

[gentle music] - Thank you, everybody.

See you next week.

- [Participant] All right, goodnight, cousins.

- All right, goodnight everybody.

- Good night.

- All right.

- Have a good night.

Great meeting!

- Bye.

- [Participant] Much love to you all.

- [Karran] Yes, agreed.

[calm music] - [Kevin] Even when we find the missing links, that won't be the end.

It's just the beginning.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ - [Announcer] Support for "Reel South" is provided by the ETV Endowment and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional funding for this program is provided by: