Meet the Lead Researcher

Greetings Skinfolk,

 I am Siziwe.  AFRI-IDentity was a vision gifted to me while on my personal ancestral journey. I have over 18 years of experience studying Africa and the Diaspora, and a lifelong experience as a daughter of the Diaspora. The duration of my academic career has been fueled by my devout interest in Pan-African studies.  As a graduate student, I am now offering my professional research services for hire. I've uncovered much through my own ancestral journey, and wish to share my experience and  assist fellow African and Indigenous descendants on their road to recollecting their full identities, and filling in the blanks caused by circumstance, family secrets, enslavement, and colonialism. Conducting this research is both humbling and beautiful, there is also great healing to be found with the uncovering and reconciling of  intergenerational secrets and bringing family myths to reality.

One thing I've learned through my own family research process, is that it can be an emotional journey; this has enabled me further to have genuine empathy and respect for the information I find for others. Your identity is sensitive information, and sacred. There is not just one monotonous historical narrative of our African and Indigenous Ancestors. Our collective histories are profound and very much intertwined. Anything is possible when researching your family lineages and perusing the archives of how you came to be in existence. We each have triumph and real heroes in our own bloodlines. Survival is a heroic deed; and we are the living and breathing results of ancestral resilience.

Genealogy Research is part of my greater mission to offer a much needed service to our community. Recollecting our stories past is both gift and a passion. I believe it is essential to recover and know our full identities as we embrace the future. It is my hope that we may work together to retrace our steps, that we may transmute the wisdoms we find along the way into resolve and strength; and that through it all we may Heal our pasts Collectively.

How I Got Started

Growing up in the East Coast of America, I had many questions on how I got here. Some of my earliest memories were of a distant home, that I had never been. I've had recurring dreams of experiences that were not my own; dreams that took place in desert landscapes, with tall black and brown hued bodies draped in elaborate cloths and adorned with intricate jewelry. As a child, I very much wanted to know why my dream world was so different from my surroundings, and why I felt so much at home in another world. My Mother and Grandmother invested a lot into my early studies by providing me with culturally conscious books predominantly of African and African American peoples,  along with books featuring other nations and cultures; so that I could discern for myself a sense of place and belonging; while appreciating holistic  human diversity. I knew very early we all came from one land, and I was paying attention to just how we culturally evolved, how we remain connected, and how we expressed differences. Now that outer focus has been applied to my own DNA and came down to one question: How have my origins and the journeys of those who walked before me shape me? 

My Grandmother used to tell me stories from her childhood, her migration from the Carolinas to New York, her meeting my Grandfather post World War II, and all that she could remember of  his and her lineages. She wrote down the names of all the relatives she could remember and preserved the information for me. I listened to her repeat the stories each time as important as the first time, until her transition to the ancestral realm in 2011.  While she was no longer present physically, my Grandmother grew even closer to me spiritually and her stories reinforced my memories of her. I had begun also to significantly note the presence of my Grandfather and other ancestors who I had not known. With excerpts from my grandmother's stories, I started to dig lightly, to find the missing branches of my family's tree. The names and information left by my Grandmother was my greatest resource.  Within a few months, my family of 12  grew to a family tree of 700+ and growing. I have managed to trace my lineage 5 generations backward and identify regions and ethnic origins in Africa. I have also met living relatives, cousins, and elders whom I am grateful for. 

This website and the services offered are in tribute to my Grandmother and my Beloved Ancestors. My known ethnic lineages traced through the Africans of the Americas are, the Songhai of Niger/Mali, The Akpele of Gabon,  the Yoruba of Nigeria, and other groups not yet determined but hailing from Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana, Benin, and Cameroon.  More to come.

Divine blessings to you as you embark on your personal journey to self.

-Siziwe