Since I first embraced this wonderful world of genealogy nearly four years ago, there has been one exciting discovery after the other. The famous pilot, Chuck Yeager, is my husband's second cousin; their grandmothers were sisters. Former baseball player, Johnny Bench, is also related to the same family. My husband and I have more than 30 Revolutionary ancestors... and the list of illustrious relatives goes on.

But I have to say that the single most exciting and enriching discovery is that I have an ancestor who is listed as "FREE-COLORED" in the 1820 & 1830 Greene County, PA censuses.

My father's mother was Mary Angela Pearl, who lived her entire life in Benwood/Boggs Run/Brown's Run, Marshall County. Her parents were William Andrew Pearl and Mary Alice Higgins. William Andrew, the son of John and Sarah (Maris) Pearl, was born 16 Oct 1876 in Perry County, Ohio. After his marriage, he resided in Benwood and held the position of City Assessor for 16 years after his retirement from Wheeling Steel Corporation. William died in Wheeling Hospital on 7 Aug 1950.

As I was growing up, my immediate family didn't see too much of our Pearl relatives, although many of them lived in Marshall County. For some reason, I always thought our Pearls had come from Ireland. In fact, it was my great-grandmother Pearl, Mary Alice Higgins, whose parents were born in Ireland. (Let me say here that there was a Pearl family in the same area of Marshall County and they WERE from Ireland.)

Earlier this year, my dad sent me a photo of our Pearl ancestors and I put it in the Postcards and Photos section of the Marshall County site. It is also linked from the "Descendants of John Pearl" file. The photo is of William Andrew Pearl, his siblings, Dora, Ed and Charles, with their father, John Pearl. My dad and I had been amazed to look at our William Andrew Pearl, with his black hair and high cheekbones, and see our own striking resemblance to him.

Soon after I put the photo online, I sent a copy to Joan Moore, a Pearl "cousin," who I knew was researching this family. She sent me a letter and mentioned, almost in passing, that Lawrence Pearl was a mulatto. Lawrence, the father of John, grandfather of William Andrew, would be my gr-gr-gr-grandfather.

Since I thought the Pearls had come from Ireland, I was very surprised!

I went to the library and looked at the census film, at first concluding that Joan was mistaken; I couldn't find Lawrence Pearl at all. But, indeed, he was there, at the end of the film on the "Free People of Color" schedule. Without question, he is the Lawrence Pearl married to a white woman.

Within a week, I had gathered an abundance of information about the Pearls and Joan Moore sent me much more. I immediately put it on a web page so it could be easily shared by other Pearl researchers. I also subscribed to the POC Mailing List and took over the PEARL List.

I was very excited about this revelation and I did share the story with a number of people - - but my dad was NOT among them! He was a racist who was unsurpassed in his hatred of people of color, specifically African-Americans. I knew that he could not cope with this news and I decided that he could never be told. Truly, he would have blown his brains out!

This was interesting because as a child I never heard anything about my dad's prejudice. But in his late years, he had become pre-occupied with his hatred of blacks and had even stopped watching the Steelers because they have a black quarterback!

But our story is this:

Lawrence Pearl was born in 1793 in Frederick County, Maryland and he married Susannah Nichols, a white woman, in Montgomery County, Maryland in 1814.

In the 1810 Greene County, PA census, are Daniel & Basil Perril/Perrel/Pearl, both free-colored, born in MD.

In 1820 & 1830, Lawrence Pearl, free-colored, is also in Greene County with his white wife. No familial connection has been made between Lawrence and Daniel & Basil but they were all listed as Free-Colored and they were all from Maryland.

Data regarding the Pearls is found here: Pearls in Maryland. Factually, all we know is that our Lawrence Pearl, born in Maryland, is listed as Free-Colored in the two censuses.

According to research done by Marlene Bransom, a native of Greene County, PA and a teacher in the Pittsbugh Public Schools, there was a great deal of racial mixing in Greene County in the 1800s. A petition was circulated in an attempt to stop the racial mixing, at which time some families moved from the area to places such as West Virginia, Indiana and Ohio.

My Lawrence Pearl had purchased property in Greene County in 1828 and in 1836, he sold the land and moved to Morgan County, Ohio. Colored people in Pennsylvania also lost the right to vote in 1837 and this was not reinstated until after the Civil War. Perhaps the growing anti-colored sentiment influenced the move to Ohio.

Noteworthy here is the fact that with this move, Lawrence CROSSED THE COLOR LINE. In all subsequent censuses, he and his descendants are white.

Because he was very light, did he make a calculated decision to escape from his "colored" heritage? Certainly, life was better and easier for white people. Or did he see himself as white?

Or in this early time, did he simply go with his color, which was light. Did the census takers in Morgan County, Ohio record "white" as the race because they looked white?

Of interest to me is that some white Maryland families, such as DEAVER and MARSHALL, from the same area as the early Pearls, were with the Pearls and inter-married with them in Maryland, Greene County, PA and then in Morgan County, Ohio. For example, Lawrence Pearl's second wife was Margaret Marshall and his daughters married Deavers. Next door to Lawrence and Margaret, is Affadilla DEAVER. She was the second wife of Reuben H. Deaver, the father of Henry T. & Reuben H. Deaver Jr., who married Lawrence's daughters, Sarah Ann & Ruth, respectively. Affidilla Deaver, born MD, is listed in the Directory of Underground Railway Operators, AFFIDILLA MOODY DEAVER.

Reuben H. Deaver was the son of Abraham and Nancy (Lakin/Linkin) Deaver. According to some researchers of the family, Nancy was the aunt of President Abraham Lincoln. However, that is not supported by the evidence.

For the last ten years, Marlene Bransom, an African-American, has been researching the African-American/mulatto families in southwestern PA, particularly Greene County. She has compiled an abundance of information about the families and is going to publish a book, hopefully in the near future. A number of the Pearls, the decendants of Basil and Daniel mentioned earlier, are among the "mixed" families. And, although I have failed to find a connection between Lawrence Pearl and these other Pearls in Greene County, I believe there is one.

I have become very familiar with the families in Marshall County, some of whom are descendants of the racially mixed, early Greene County families. Not long ago, I updated the censuses to include race, which is very important and relevant to our research.

I am sharing my story with the hope that others will come forward and share their pieces of the genealogical puzzle that include people of color.

It is my belief that when we begin doing genealogy, we have to accept what we find. But all too often, people want to either candy-coat or ignore the aspects of their heritage that they find less savory.

Racism is something I have never understood to begin with but I will refrain from a philosophical discussion of that topic. All I can say is that my siblings and I are extremely pleased and proud of this discovery about our heritage. But I am well aware that some people will not be comfortable with any aspect of this subject.

(Note: It would be nice to be able to conclude that negro necessarily means "African-American." But the "label" was applied to any or all of the non-whites. Apparently, in early Maryland, prior to the mass influx of Europeans, there were Indians and "people of color" who mixed with each other and also with white people. The offspring were all then "People of color" or "Mulattos" or "Negros." The dark-skinned might have been from Africa but they might have been from Spain, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, or a number of other places. NO ONE KNOWS. But there was a large population of mixed race people that happened before racism was such an issue. It is comparable to the history of the so-called "Melungeons.")