Anders Genealogical Services reconnects families with their ancestral stories. Using her skills as a genealogist, Mica Anders, its founder, finds lost family members and creates art that represents a family’s unique history.
Like most people, Anders started genealogy by researching her own family. When she moved to Minnesota to pursue a master’s degree in visual arts, she used genealogy as the basis for her thesis. She began by researching 11 families.
“[I] take different elements of family history and turn them into images of icons,” she says. Combining things like West African symbols or textiles such as Kente or Adire cloth, she tells the story of the family through art.
‘It doesn’t look just like a chart. It’s more visually appealing” than a basic family tree, she explains. “[It’s] something that people would want to hang up on a wall and showcase.”
After completing her thesis based on the 11 families, some asked if she could continue researching their families. “There was something so special about being able to reintroduce people to their ancestors,” she says. “And give them back family stories that have either been lost over time or intentionally hidden from them.”
She attended genealogy conferences in her 20s. Most of the attendees were white and 40 or more years older than her. “They didn’t quite know what to do with me,” she says.
Anders was surprised at how far back in a family’s history she could go. “I was able to find…enslaved people and learned about who their enslavers were,” she shared.
“The first time I found somebody who was born in the 1820s, I was so excited.”
For Europeans, getting to the 1600s is much more likely because slavery is not a barrier. For African Americans, slavery can pose one of the biggest challenges. “People were not documented as humans; they were documented as property,” she says.
“When we’re looking at early census records of maybe the 1850s or 1860s for example, they are not listed on the regular census with their name and their family structure,” she explains. They are listed as a line on slave schedules with a gender, approximate age, and either Black or mulatto.
Besides slave records, there are deeds, records of sale, or wills that show the transfer of people as property.
“The other thing that makes it difficult is that people don’t realize not everybody was a slave,” she says. “They don’t even think that they might find their family as free people of color. And so, they don’t even know to look for those types of records.”
The Freedmen’s Bureau lists people who had escaped enslavement. Anders traced the ancestors of a family back to the 1830s as free people in New Jersey.
Documentation increased once more people were born in hospitals. Though we hold vital records as truths, Anders says they are often not factual.
In Minnesota, for instance, only the mother’s name must be recorded on a birth certificate. If the father is not at that birth, the mother must watch a video before the father’s name can be listed. This happens even when both parents are equally involved in the child’s life.
“That’s a thing we still run into today,” Anders says. “And I would say it disproportionately impacts one group over another.”
Newspapers can be helpful when paper records are lost or inaccurate. Anders recently used the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (MSR) to research a client’s case. Newspapers, “especially the Black newspapers, kept a pulse on the community in ways that sometimes even paper records didn’t do a good job of.”
Most cases, depending on what a family is looking for, have an eight-week turnaround. Within two to three months, Anders can find the details of a person’s story.
Over the last few years, DNA analysis expanded the search. It may be one of the only ways in cases of adoption, lost family stories, or going back to the early-to-mid 1800s.
“I’ve seen some really cool cases where families are able to reconnect through DNA when they were separated through enslavement,” Anders says. “I see all records as ‘sort of accurate’ because I’ve learned so many times over that what’s on them is not true. But sometimes there’s some thread of truth to it,” she says.
DNA doesn’t completely take the place of using historical libraries. “You still have to do some of that leg work and go to different historical societies and state libraries and even public libraries to try and get family information,” Anders says. “That [information] isn’t and never will be digitized and online.”
Anders offers a breakthrough session for $250. This is for those doing research but who get stuck and can’t move past one person in their family’s history. It includes a two-hour, one-on-one session in person or on Zoom.
She also offers an ancestor package to find one lost relative. She finds out who they, their children, and their parents are. This service is $3,500. For this and other packages, she offers payment plans. The costs change depending on the complexity of the case.
Anders wants people to know that finding lost ancestors is possible even if challenging. Sometimes this is a result of ancestors intentionally putting obstacles in the way.
“I have another case where the great-grandpa put a different birth date and a different birth name on every single legal document,” she says. “He was a Pullman porter, a World War Two vet. He was just not trusting of the government. So being able to get past him was definitely a longer process.”
Ultimately, uncovering ancestral history can lead to a better understanding of a family. “I think there’s just a lot of power in uncovering those family stories,” Anders says.
“Not just necessarily learning who lived when and filling out a family chart, but really understanding that family dynamic that helps us understand who we are to this day.”
Go to www.andersgenealogicalservices.com for a complete listing of their services. Or contact them at mica@andersgenealogicalservices.com or 612-567-1717.
Vickie Evans-Nash welcomes reader responses to vnash@spokesman-recorder.com.
Beautiful work! So impressed and so important!