Be careful what you look for because you just might find it....You have to remember that your relatives were living their lives. You can’t be offended by that.
Clayborn Benson’s quest to find his ancestors didn’t begin by perusing digital archives on a computer, by visiting an old stone county courthouse, or by leafing through yellowed historical documents in a dusty storeroom.
His search started much closer to home: inside his mother’s purse.
“I found pictures. I found a social security card with a different name than what I knew her as,” said Benson, a Milwaukee Area Technical College graduate founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Black Historical Society. “Many people hold their information dear and they keep it close. What better place than a purse?”
Benson, a graduate of MATC's Photography program who worked as a cameraman at television station WTMJ for nearly 40 years, detailed how he painstakingly pieced together his family history during a presentation held Thursday, February 20, in the Create Gallery at MATC’s Downtown Milwaukee Campus. The event, called “Tracing Your Roots,” was part of MATC’s celebration of Black History Month.
See more photos from the event
Tracing your family roots can be an exhausting, complicated, emotional yet rewarding process, Benson told the crowd of MATC students, staff, faculty and guests. “These searches are labor intensive. You can spend hours, weeks, months and years doing it,” he said. “Sometimes, it turns into a lifetime endeavor.”
He spent three decades researching his genealogy, traveling to Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, combing through records at county courthouses, and cajoling tight-lipped relatives to talk about his family’s past.
“Some people in my family kept huge secrets. Some were reluctant to tell me anything,” Benson said.
In his research, Benson discovered that his father had been married five times before he met Benson’s mother. He also became convinced his father never knew how to read or write.
“He made a living with his hands. He worked with concrete, he was a carpenter,” Benson said. “I could see some of the things he helped make.”
He found out one of his relatives served as a second lieutenant in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He guarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina, but he broke his shoulder and was released from duty in either 1861 or early 1862.
His family line also intersected with the lives of white slaveholders, and some of the descendants of those folks contacted Benson, he said.
“Be careful what you look for because you just might find it. At some point, I thought about stopping because I was scared of what I might find,” Benson said. “You have to remember that your relatives were living their lives. You can’t be offended by that.”
Also at the event were Cheralyn Randall, a retired MATC administrator, and Myrelene Saunders, a retired MATC instructor, who are both active in the African American Genealogical Society of Milwaukee, a nonprofit organization committed to the preservation of the history and culture of the city’s Black residents. The society encourages research, recording and documenting personal family histories, and preserving records within families and the community.
Randall, Saunders and Benson discussed the vast amount of information that can be gleaned from federal census records and said there are many websites, such as Legacy.com, Ancestry.com and Family Search, that offer a wealth of resources and assistance for genealogists.
Saunders, an officer in the society, urged searchers to make copies of everything they found and to be prepared to wear out some shoe leather in tracking down information.
“Everything can’t be done on computers,” Saunders said. “You will need to visit government offices and walk through some cemeteries.”
Genealogy not only helps people understand their identity, history and place in the world, but also honors the people who came before us, Saunders said.
“The fact that our ancestors survived is unique,” she said. “They are the real trailblazers.”
Read more about Clayborn Benson
About MATC: As Wisconsin’s largest technical college and one of the most diverse two-year institutions in the Midwest, Milwaukee Area Technical College is a key driver of southeastern Wisconsin’s economy and has provided innovative education in the region since 1912. More than 30,000 students per year attend the college’s four campuses and community-based sites or learn online. MATC offers affordable and accessible education and training opportunities that empower and transform lives in the community. The college offers more than 180 academic programs — many that prepare students for jobs immediately upon completion and others that provide transfer options leading to bachelor’s degrees with more than 40 four-year colleges and universities. Overwhelmingly, MATC graduates build careers and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
