As I’ll bet you are aware, there has been a storm of publicity in Spokane over Rachel Dolezal and her string of lies which built her career. In this week’s newsletter (www.eogn.com for 22 Jun 2015) Dick Eastman delivers a genealogy answer to her:

A Genealogist Traces Rachel Dolezal’s Ancestry and Finds No Black Relatives
Rachel Dolezal has recently stirred up a controversy concerning he ancestry. She resigned Monday as head of her local NAACP chapter after reports surfaced that she was born white yet has claimed she is black. If you are not familiar with this recent news story that has been on all the news networks, start at https://goo.gl/QykhVSto find a few hundred reports about her recent controversy. Now a professional genealogist says that Dolezal’s claim is bogus.

Professional genealogist Elizabeth Banas has researched Dolezal’s ancestry back to 1671 and found that her family were entirely white, including some who were Mormons. Archives show that Rachel’s ancestors came to the US from Europe and have no bloodlines linking them to slaves or to Africa. Even a great grandmother who has almost identical features to Rachel was identified as white in two census documents.

Of course, there is always a possibility of an adoption that cannot be found in official records or that a baby was switched with another at birth. However, Dolezal’s parents claim that is impossible. They say Dolezal was born at home and spent her entire childhood living with her biological parents.

Details may be found in the Daily Mail at http://goo.gl/FzWemn.

Below is something I found in a 1936 St. Louis, Missouri, City Directory. I was browsing through this directory online at Ancestry and spotted this page and just had  to share it with all my genealogy friends:

City Directory Don’ts

DON’T put your Directory in an out-of-the-way place, but keep it where

your customers can see and use it without stopping some one to find it.

DON’T think that a Directory is paying for itself unless you use it any more

than an idle clerk can make you money.

DON’T look mad when a customer asks to look at your Directory.

DON’T look happy when a neighbor wants to borrow your Directory,

for if you do, he will borrow it again, and if all were borrowers,

when would the next Directory be published?

DON’T forget that an up-to-date city must have a Directory;

and a merchant that has no Directory is what?

DON’T forget that a Directory borrower today will forget to return it

tomorrow and you will call him what?

DON’T forget that the man who has a Directory pays for it and the borrower

gets for nothing what another man pays for. What do you call him?

We think of a City Directory as a past-tense resource. But to the merchants and civil servants of the day it was a valuable day-to-day “now” resource………. and one that was obtained only by paying a fee.