Episode 36: Connecting Your Past to the Present: Genealogy, DNA, and Identity w/ Nicka Sewell Smith

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, family, pictures, ancestry, talk, cousin, connected, dna, photos, ancestor, story, conversation, person, told, feel, enslaved, genealogist, folks, information, live

SPEAKERS

Amber Cabral, Nicka

 

Nicka  00:00

You fill your mouth after you don’t want to go back to another toothbrush after this. Like, yeah, my sister got finesse, and then I got finesse girl, yes, I showed dude. Got a little case. Okay, brought my romantic Sure did. Brought it to California. Loved it all right, I’m

 

Amber Cabral  00:16

so Okay, so I guess I’ll give you this. You know this. You know some of this already, but main camera, obviously, and then that’s your I’m making a point. I’d like you make sure you know that got it. That’s my camera for that. And then we’re just gonna jump right into the conversation, and then I will do your intro at the end, right? I may browse down if I want to just, you know, while you’re talking, don’t let that distract you. If time is close, they’ll give me a signal, and then I’ll let you know, like, you know, I’ll start moving towards wrap up. So don’t even worry about that. And then this part, you know, too, if you got a cough, take a pause, cough, and then continue, right so we can snip it. And did I miss anything? Restate

 

Nicka  00:56

the question when you answer. Oh, it makes clean. I’m sorry. It makes no questions. We just have Well, I’m just saying it makes cleaner edits for your snippets, for your social shares. This is, this is what happens when you give me your training.

 

Amber Cabral  01:09

You’re a pro. I know you’re a pro. I don’t worry about you. It’s easy. I didn’t sleep at 19 minutes last night. No, the thing is, it’ll be interesting, and I can relax right for it. Um, okay, can I touch your hair? Oh, we got a curl. A wayward girl,

 

Nicka  01:30

see, I’ll be wishing my hair would do that and it won’t tricks and lies up here. Chat. Girl, listen the tricks and the lies that I have to concoct in order for yeah it,

 

Amber Cabral  01:41

I love it.

 

Nicka  01:42

Thank you. I mean, I had it regular the last time, yeah, you did.

 

Amber Cabral  01:46

It was curly, but I love it. I feel like you change it all the

 

Nicka  01:49

time. I really do. And yeah, girl, then I got some clippings. I have same hair all the time. So I got clippings, though. Now wait. I did okay. I did. Just see you listen, I blow dried it out, clipped them jets in. I was like, why is this blending seamlessly? Now I have enough. Now you have a whole you have a hole ready to go here. I don’t even have the persona name yet. We’re gonna have to figure, oh, she

 

Amber Cabral  02:11

gotta name her. Sorry. We’re ready. You told us that we will, as you see, this will be a good chat. Okay, um, I’m probably just gonna leap in at what you do? Okay, and then we’ll just riff from there. All right, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

 

Nicka  02:27

I am excited to be here with you. Finally, I

 

Amber Cabral  02:31

know, right? I feel like we did a podcast a long time ago, but we didn’t have the benefit of visual at that time.

 

Nicka  02:36

That’s very true. I mean, the landscape has changed quite a bit, right? Totally different world. Yeah, well, you have to have companions, because people listen differently. Now, like, it’s not just oh, you have to see the visual. If you’re just in the video, you have to have both. And

 

Amber Cabral  02:48

I think social is different. So now we’re, like, thoughtful about oh, I have to have a sound bite, and I want somebody to be able to see something, right? So it’s a whole experience. And I’m so glad we get to enjoy it. I know, please, can you tell us what we do, what you do? Nica, I think you have the most interesting job. It’s so yummy. But can you talk to us about what you do? How would you describe what you do? Hmm, I’m a storyteller. Storyteller, absolutely,

 

Nicka  03:12

I’m totally a storyteller. That’s, that’s kind of what I live and breathe and exist in every day. And it’s just It comes naturally, because I come from a family of storytellers, and I don’t even think I even, I don’t even think I thought about it like that until, yeah, so

 

Amber Cabral  03:29

start, started coming together, right? But you have a lot of mediums, so you, you, I mean, you’re familiar with being behind a camera. You also take photos, so being behind a camera that way as well, right? And then storytelling from a genealogy standpoint, which is the thing that I, you know, mostly, am enamored with, that you do, all of those things kind of unite to kind of create this like powerful storytelling vehicle, right? The cornucopia of Cornucopia told earlier they asked me not to use any big words. I wonder if that would have been on been on their

 

Nicka  04:03

list. Well, I mean, you know, everyone, most people, are familiar with Cornucopia for like, projects, right? Because of the holiday, yeah, but yeah. I mean, it’s it. For me, it definitely it pulls storytelling, pulls in all the different aspects of things that I like, whether it’s history or whether it’s visuals, with photography or video, whether it’s stills, whether it’s documents, like it’s genealogy, really kind of pulls all that stuff together. Okay,

 

Amber Cabral  04:29

so I know so much of your story already. I’m going to ask you to share, man, I have two pieces I really want you to talk about, but I’m gonna leave with this one when we the very first time that we talked and we did a podcast interview, we talked quite a bit about your journey to uncovering your own history, and it’s such a it’s such a good story. And I know we have a limited amount of time, but can you share at least a sliver of that? Because I feel like the way you talk about that really excites people into. To wanting to explore their own genealogy, like I remember after talking to you, I was like, I have to talk to you about my family. I don’t even know where to begin, but it was, it was so impressive to me that you have connected so many dots and had so much information from what perceivably could have been very little. And then all of a sudden it was just like, this amazing story comes out, can you share a little bit of that with us? Well, I

 

Nicka  05:22

mean, for me, my curiosity started as a child, you know, coming from a family of storytellers, I was constantly hearing different things about this person or that person in my family tree, you know, whether it’s the outlaws in the, you know, Indian Territory and the wild west on one side, or it’s the civil rights movement on the other you know, that was natural for me, and that curiosity and rolling out that family tree on the table that my cousin put together, which, you know, when we were talking before, I was telling you about this cousin, exactly, Professor Wayne State Oakland University in Chicago, or not Chicago, I’m saying Detroit, yeah, in Detroit, in Detroit, But in my family, Chicago and Detroit are synonymous, because those are two different places in Midwest, right, right? But it’s like, it’s Milwaukee, it’s Chicago and it’s Detroit, and those are the three places that my family ended up anchors, right? Okay? And they migrated, in some ways, in between all three. So sometimes the people in Chicago went to Milwaukee, sometimes they went to Detroit, vice versa. Very

 

Amber Cabral  06:23

culture rich cities. Oh,

 

06:25

absolutely great food. Great

 

Amber Cabral  06:27

food, great people. I mean, very, very diverse, also, like lots of black folks, lots of nice too,

 

Nicka  06:33

right? Exactly. I mean, in addition to, you know, cultural stuff, in fact, I was talking yesterday about how when St Patrick’s Day happens, we have to eat the customary Irish dish at my house. And I remember being a kid being like, why are we eating cabins pork, beef and cabbage? They were not Irish. But my mom and my dad were raised in Chicago and in Detroit, we do the same, right? Die in the river. Great. Yeah, right. We

 

Amber Cabral  06:57

are going to absolutely have corned beef, right? It is a thing I still prepare see Yeah, and oh, which reminds me. This is so random, but I have to share this with you. So we talked about my family tree years, you know, years ago I found out that I, my last name is supposed to be McCoy. Yummy. Detail. I was like, I can’t wait to tell her this. Yes, whoa, supposed to be McCoy. So, you know, the, of course, the corned beef and cabbage just brought

 

Nicka  07:26

that sum ended up, right? It was like, so, yeah,

 

Amber Cabral  07:29

we could dig into that later. But yes, so, yes, absolutely. So your family was between these three levels, right,

 

Nicka  07:36

right? I mean, and really honestly, if you look at my mom’s side, we’re in, what, 25 states and four countries. My dad side is really pretty much isolated, mostly to Kansas City, Kansas in California. But as a kid, you know the stories and just hearing different things and kind of being the collector. And I don’t think I had necessarily, at a young age, thought of myself as being like the story collector or the history collector, but I was just naturally the person that was there when everyone was talking, right? I was curious and nosy, right, right, all that. And so I didn’t I for the for the first part of my journey, I was really more collecting names, and then as time went on, I started to worry more and be more concerned about the dash between the dates and who those people were and what lives they lived, and like how their decisions and things sewed into who I became, or maybe other people in my family who they will become, and that that’s really, I think, just being curious, liking to talk to people being in relationship and and it’s so funny because some of my really good friends are like, I don’t know how you manage so many relationships with so many people you

 

Amber Cabral  08:45

you do a great job with that. You do do a great job with that. You don’t miss a beat.

 

Nicka  08:51

I will, because for me, it’s not like, it’s just your journey is a part of mine, and so like, as I see you ascend or do things like, and we’re connected to it, right? Like, it’s hard for me, it’s really hard for me to disconnect. And so like, for you, like, I’ll just be like, Oh, let me make sure I say something to Amber,

 

Amber Cabral  09:08

you do such a great job of it. You check in on me all the time. You comment on the most like, and your comments are meaningful. It’s not like, you’re just like, out here Harding things. You’re like, girl, did you see the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah about the such and such. And I’m like, Oh no, I didn’t let me go look at that like you have really robust connected, like relationships, like, not just I know this person, let me tap in. It’s I know this person. I know about you. Let me tell you the thing that I enjoy or I notice, or I’m gonna respond to this post you put up, because I know how this connects for you. That’s incredible. A lot of people can’t do that well. I

 

Nicka  09:40

mean, I didn’t really even see it as a skill, but in some ways, as a as a family historian, as a genealogist, you have to be a connector. Yeah, because you’re the, you’re like, the heartbeat of your family, and you know, you need all the systems working together in order for the heart to beat. And so naturally, I’m a connector. And I do that in my life. I do that in my family. It’s like. Oh, you know, what? Is there anybody that lives in so and so? And I’m the one that’s like, yep, this person’s here. They live there and and our family history book is turned into like a yearbook, in a way, where if you have like, a young person who’s interested in maybe going to a HBCU, you can look in that book and see all the people who’ve already gone to that school, wow. Or if you want to pledge a sorority or fraternity, you can see everybody who has if you want to go to the military, you can see who was in which respective branch. Like all of that is in there. And people like, they flip to that index. Oh, wait a minute, you on page 325, okay. And they just read from it, and, and. And I, honestly, that’s what I wanted when I first really started doing this seriously. I wanted people to be able to Google their name and find our family website, pull it up and see how they were connected, and if they wanted to see a death certificate of a great, great grandparent, or read an obituary or find out when the next reunion was going to be, that they had the ability to do that in one place. Yes,

 

Amber Cabral  10:58

I love that. So I think it’s so privileged for you to know this much about your family, and I also know it’s a privilege that you want others to experience. Can you talk about what people should be doing to start that? Because especially for black and brown folks, and for those of us who you know descended from slavery or as a part of the slave trade came to be in this country, it can be, like, incredibly, just intimidating to even think about, because you hear all these stories. And so part of you might be like, I don’t even know if I want to go through the trauma. But also you’re curious, because you don’t have a real sense of like, where am I from? And so how do you recommend people start

 

Nicka  11:46

the best thing that anyone listening or watching could do is talk and listen. And I really, really want to make this point. There are few times, especially in the 20th century, where the media or other people at large, just sit and have conversations with black people, oh my gosh, like, let me just hear your story. You know you don’t have to have done something in just outrageous or news or headline making, like, just your story, and even the funny part about, like, you know, obituaries, where I talk about, like, how they have a standard set of thing, they confess the hope in Christ at an early age. Yes, you know, they leave behind the cherish the memory born to the union of right, like, we have all these things that you gotta put there, but that was one of the only ways that black folks could tell the world about who they were. Yeah, and leave a mark. It’s

 

Amber Cabral  12:47

so interesting that you said that, like, you want people to talk and listen, and you feel like we don’t have enough stories, but we’re in the era of like podcasting and like Instagram Live and like all of this, like social tool, like, it’s surprising. It’s like it’s not happening. But you know what I thought about? You know that sometimes it’s floats around the internet where you see that conversation that was between James Baldwin and Nikki Yes, we all have that. That’s

 

Nicka  13:13

what I’m talking about, that that’s what I’m talking about. It’s just regular ass, just, yeah, just that. Or, like, it’s

 

Amber Cabral  13:20

like cultural conversation, right? Like, right, who I am, how I see what,

 

Nicka  13:24

and how I see the world, how I view things. And not only that, but just like when you when election season happens and people go to these diners and they talk to a specific demographic, but they don’t, I don’t ever hear that going to other places, that’s true and and the visuals that go along with that. And sometimes you may see it on like Tiktok, where someone has, like, a grandparent or a great grandparent, that’s an advanced age, and they’re just funny or, like, you know, they just have something about them that’s like, you know, and that’s that person cataloging them. But we don’t do that for all the elders in our lives. We don’t because we think they’re going to be around forever. We forget that some, at some point we’re going to become the OG Exactly.

 

Amber Cabral  14:07

Well, you know, I’m having that moment right now. It makes me a little uncomfortable, you know, like I have these moments where people will bring things up and I’m like, oh, shoot, you’ve never seen a telephone that like in the house telephone. That’s mind, right thing, right? So, yeah, that is true. Okay, so we should, we should do more talking and talking

 

Nicka  14:25

and listening and and gathering, you know? So it’s the listening, asking the questions. And for some people, they have to, they have to get permission to even ask the questions. Yeah, like somebody has to say it’s okay for you to ask this conversation just, who’s our family, who’s my dad, who’s my mom. Like, for some people, it’s getting permission from themselves, like it’s okay to search that out, but the conversations are important, because once those people are gone, you can’t get that information back. You know, there’s a Alex Haley quote that every time. Person dies. It’s like a library burning down. And that’s literally what it is like, yeah, genealogically, speaking about

 

Amber Cabral  15:06

them is gone. That’s so true. You know, I, you know this, I lost my dad this year. Well, last year, this right about this time, and I uncovered my father was not very verbose. We’ve had to talk to and so I didn’t necessarily have a lot of information, but, like, I did ask as much as I could. And then when his mother was alive, my grandmother, I also asked her a lot, but what I really uncovered was just in packing up his home, wrote a lot of things. He, you know, he he captured, he kept pictures, he and then also other family members would send him pictures, like I found an envelope that was my great grandmother’s, like, handwriting that she had mailed to her mother. Wow. Like old school mail, right, right, with a bunch of photographs in it. Do

 

Nicka  15:53

you know that technology is being developed now where they can lift the DNA off of the envelope to test it away. Yeah, wow. So, you know, so I’m keeping, I have it right, right? But, like, that’s the thing. So if you can’t, if you don’t have an elder to test, yes, you can potentially have items right there, there’s, they’re developing technology to be able to do that now. And that ends, we know you lick the envelope, right, right, because, right, right. But, but the thing that’s so powerful about that is, like people who are currently living, obviously, we have DNA from all of our ancestors, but the older people you go, you know, the further you go back, the more close to the people who were alive during enslavement, or had grandparents who were were enslaved, and all of that. I mean that that opens up the the floodgates, a little bit in terms of that kind of stuff. So it’s life

 

Amber Cabral  16:43

changing. It really is. People have things that have just been handed down

 

Nicka  16:47

that part, that part, and even, like, you know, technology they have for, like, more pictures were taken and kind of figuring out, like, oh my gosh, that’s here. Like, you know, we’re kind of in this, like, amazing Renaissance with, like, a lot of this stuff that that for, for a long time, wasn’t possible, yeah, and at the same time, there still are things that need to come up to, you know, come up to a level, right, right as well. You

 

Amber Cabral  17:12

know, I was incredibly impressed because, you know, I signed up for ancestry because of you, and I did the test and all that. And I was, I was blown away with just how many people that I am family with that were just curious about their family, right? Because we had like, four or five different family trees like that. People had gone out to say, like, Okay, well, I’m gonna start the little piece that I know, and then there’s a bunch of those, and you’re like, Oh, so this person, and this person is for the are on all of these, and you can put it together. That alone, to me, was incredibly mind blowing,

 

Nicka  17:41

and it’s the fact that the enslavement and just our history here United States is, in some ways, was meant to keep us disjointed and not in community. And so now we have these spaces where you can, well, here’s my little bit that I know, and here’s my little bit we gonna put it together, right, bigger, right, bigger and better, and, and, and you know that that’s what I hope for, like, especially when folks DNA test or they start building trees again, I want them to find me. I want to reach out to them. I literally, like, two days ago, there was a cousin that just came up in my matches, and I was like, Oh, we’re connected by my great, great, great grandparents. Like, I already knew just based off of his name, wow. And I know for him, I was like, let me not freak him out that I, like, No, right? Well, if he Googles you, right, then he would, he would know that I wasn’t, like, this crazy,

 

Amber Cabral  18:26

weird, right? But that would be weird to get into your inbox. I could see that, right?

 

Nicka  18:30

Like, I was like, Hey, I think we’re connected because our last name is bean. It’s like, not a common last name. And so I was like, oh, it’s got to be my great, great, great grandparents. Like, I’ll figure out, like, I’ll figure out how we’re related. It took, it didn’t take me very long, because I had already done the research. Yes, I had the map, right, so I already had it mapped out. And he was, he was floored. Like, I can’t believe you figured this out so fast. And I’m like, well, that’s just, again, it’s the privilege of your foundation not being, you know, seven miles down under the ground, so to speak. It’s, you know, we’re up in a skyscraper on some branches of my family. On others, we still, we still underground. We trying to figure it out. Figure

 

Amber Cabral  19:09

it out. Yeah, wow, right. So let me, let me ask you this, because the last time I saw you, you were showing a preview of a movie that was so good. I mean, the movie couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes. It feels like it was such a it was 29

 

Nicka  19:22

runtime. It was 29 runtime

 

Amber Cabral  19:25

good. And in the movie, and I want you to talk about it, because I’m gonna butcher the name, but it was so good, because what you essentially did was find these people to say, Hey, I found a relative of yours. And I think it’s important. And it really kind of centered around the Freedmen’s Bureau, correct? Can you share a little bit about that, just also so they can? People can go watch it, because it was incredible. But the story itself also speaks a lot to what you’re talking about, that uncovering, right,

 

Nicka  19:50

right? So the film’s called the dream delivered the Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson, and just being a part of that production completely changed my life. Um. Like, and I talked about that that day, like, literally, I wrote a movie after I made this film, like, I didn’t think that I could write a script and. Girl, no, no, complete, no, I’m so serious. Like, I

 

Amber Cabral  20:13

did not a storyteller. You know all the stuff. You know who in your family. So bacon. You know who he we connected over bacon. Girl, possibly think you couldn’t write a movie, but

 

Nicka  20:26

I was just, I didn’t think it was possible. But the thing, a lot of it is exposure, right? Like, you know, you don’t really, sometimes know what’s possible until you get exposed to it, and until there are people who you’re in relationship with who say you like, yes, you can do this. Like, like, don’t, you know, don’t tap out, right? You need the people in your life to tell you not to talk about it, right? Give you encouragement. Yes. So with the film, mother and a daughter, basically, I take them on this journey of learning about their ancestor who that’s the thing about that story, is that Hawkins Wilson has been talked about for decades. Like, if you Google his name, it’s just out there in the ether, one of the most well known stories in the Freedmen’s Bureau. And, you know, the team at ancestry, you know, I mean, it took us a year to, you know, track down his descendants and try to find someone on the other side, and we’re still working at trying to find more the family, yeah, but it was just the dream and the vision of one of my colleagues. I love this, my boo. I love Lisa Elsie. I got to give her a shout out, because she’s the one that just was like, We can do this.

 

Amber Cabral  21:35

Story was so powerful. It was again, less than 30 minutes, and I just remember there, there’s something my, I mean, I really might tear up. There’s something so chemical about, like, Yeah, I’m gonna tear up. Just like, having a connection to who you are, you know what I’m saying. And so, like, what was so amazing about it was just this, this ability to, like, find these people who were living their regular everyday lives, weren’t necessarily thinking much about their history. And then they uncovered this well of information that literally sends them on, like, trips and like, I want to investigate this, and, oh, this makes sense. And then they actually met other people who are living now, because we also think of this as a thing that’s like, Oh, it’s just gonna send me back into the past, right? They got connected to people who are like, here right now, and they, like, met each other, and we’re like, oh my gosh, we’re connected through this family. It was I again, I can’t even talk about it without tearing up, because it’s incredible.

 

Nicka  22:34

Well, I will tell you that that’s one of the aspects of the enslavement experience with black folks that I think we we just, we don’t think about there are people back in Africa, yep, who are our family. There are people here who are stateside, yes, who we don’t know, who our ancestors were sold away from each other, that are our family. There are people in the Caribbean. That’s another that’s a whole that’s all, yes, that’s a whole other thing. Like, remember, I was talking about my family being, like, seven miles down, right? I have aspects that one of mine is connecting to Jamaica. What my people know, what you mean. My people were in Louisiana. How do I have random streams? How do I have Jamaican cousins? Wow, how do I have Jamaican cousins? Yeah, and how do they what is that when, especially when slavery ended a whole 30 something years earlier, right, in Jamaica, than it did in the United States? Yeah, so it’s our story is expanding. It’s broadening. It it’s reminding us that the world is way smaller than we think it is. And with that story, you don’t have to have had a film made in order for you to take that journey. That

 

Amber Cabral  23:51

was the thing I felt like y’all highlighted really well. You made it really clear that, like, we are highlighting this story and this man, but like, the point was really to say there’s all this wealth of information available now that the Freedmen’s Bureau, you know, archives are out, and so you can search in a way, because there was some deliberate intention taken with this information in a way that for black and brown folks we didn’t have, right? So like that. That was definitely the centerpiece. But the experience of I cannot fathom in my mind, meeting the feeling of meeting somebody and being like, Yo, I’m connected to you, and I know how right, and I’m willing to meet this utter stranger, and immediately I feel this like, sense of like tie. So I feel like the film did a good job of like, highlighting the story, but also highlighting like. This isn’t a one off. This is an experience that is accessible to

 

Nicka  24:42

all of us. And the thing that’s really, for me, the sort of ironic about this is, I was with this mother and this daughter, and I, you know, I still keep in contact with them and talk to them like, I’m just, I’m very, I don’t know, I’m just very intentional about, like,

 

Amber Cabral  24:55

you’re great at it.

 

Nicka  24:56

So I’m just like, you know, but that’s that was not the first time. Ever done that like that. I do that in real life, like that’s what you do. That’s what I do with people. Like my cousin’s sitting here. I met her because of an email. Oh my gosh, literally, I’ve met her because of an

 

Amber Cabral  25:13

email. So what was it? I saw the name and said, Let me dig into that. Well, no,

 

Nicka  25:17

what happened was, it’s so interesting. We have a cousin group of just like girls, the majority have the names s and J. I’m the odd one out with an N, and our moms were the keepers of the stories. We are all connected through our fathers, okay, and our mothers were the ones that kept the stories. And my cousin’s mom kept telling her about this ancestor she had that her father was named after. And she, you know, through life, had kids married, you know, became a widow, young, and all of that. And she, like, one day she just decided, like, let me, let me look into this thing that my mom told me about, and she came across me posting on a website talking about our shared ancestor, and that that’s the ancestor that was featured on Bass Reeves. It’s the same person. Wow. So she so our so our ancestor became a, is a character on on lawma and Bass Reeves, and it’s also you

 

Amber Cabral  26:15

are a, wow. Okay, can I get the words out. So this underscores your point, though, like that you have to talk, right? Has to tell you, have to share with you the story, to post it, or whatever it needs, right? It needs to be. How else would anything have been uncovered if the stories were not out there? Well?

 

Nicka  26:35

And the thing that was so funny about that even she just like cold emailed me, and it was so interesting, because she kind of perfect person to code, right? Because, I mean, because I just do that, yeah? But like, she just laid out. She’s like, she told me who her aunt was, and she and I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, this person really is related to me, because her aunt was someone I remembered as a child hearing about in the family, so we just kept up with each other and everything. And then, like, DNA came to the fore. She’s like, Well, I’m gonna test. I’m like, but I already know this is real, because, like all the names are adding, of course, she’s right there on my results, exactly. And it happened again. I posted a photo of my great grandmother and her sister in law on ancestry, and had someone message me. This is our another cousin of the cousins chat now, who had never seen a picture of her great grandmother from the front. She only had one of the profile, and she was longing for this picture of her. And it was hilarious, because she looked just like her. I’m like, look in the mirror. You’re looking at her. That’s wild. And it is. She’s drawn to it, right, right? And so she just reached out, and that’s how we ended up. I mean, it’s crazy. So I come from one of Ike’s sons, my cousin who I’ve been talking about very lovingly. My cousin Sheila comes from another one of his sons, and then Joanna comes from his daughter. So that’s how we kind of got Ike Rogers children, sort of back together. Was through cold emails and a photo on on ancestry. That’s literally how random that was.

 

Amber Cabral  27:59

So I always ask you this question, because I think it’s an important one, especially for black and brown communities. And I love your answer. You know, we have the reservations. You know, we don’t want to do facial recognition

 

Nicka  28:09

and we want to put this in because I’m just, I’m the same way about the DNA, right? That’s how I know I’m getting old. Is because, I mean, it could, you gotta have a gut check every once in all right? Where it’s like, oh, you know, I won’t do that, right? Like, come

 

Amber Cabral  28:24

on, a lot of your stuff is available, right? Because you know what you do,

 

Nicka  28:28

right, right? So, so the thing is, especially with DNA testing. I mean, you know, there have been some very high profile things in the news over the last few months around that, and I always tell people, no matter if it’s your DNA or if it’s your personal data on a social media website, you have to be very vigilant about privacy and what your agreement is with whatever the company is, which you sign up on. And, you know, I can’t speak to anybody else. I can totally talk about, you know, ancestry. That’s a very important part of what we do is making sure that you know what your data is, what you have control over, how you control it, all of that. And then with DNA, the one aspect I think that people are concerned about is like, law enforcement access. And right? Like, oh, Lord, they gonna find Okay, here’s the thing, ancestry doesn’t allow law enforcement access. That’s important. And if it’s a separate issue, it’s a right. And if people want and if the law enforcement wants to get access to systems, they have to get a court order, just like they would if it was not a website. And you know, their legal is very that is like something that is at the utmost important So, and I understand people’s preoccupation or concerns about it, but I’ve seen also what it’s done in my life and my research. And there are things that I would have never found absolutely had I not had my family, on both sides, not participated in DNA and one side. I mean, it was like, you know, I said, Hey, we’re doing this new thing. Are you guys interested? And they. This, when I tell you, we have, like, 130 people tested incredible.

 

Amber Cabral  30:03

I had to beg my dad, and he did. He didn’t do ancestry. He did another one, but it was so much, and it was just this paranoid. But I don’t want to call it paranoia, because a lot of ways it’s justified, like it right? Been a lot of, there’s been a lot of things have reason to be reserved about, me to give you what you know, right? So I understood, but like, there, I know that there’s so much value, you know, particularly for girls, because you you have, you need to have the men tested, right?

 

Nicka  30:30

Because you’re getting, you’re getting the why and then, and then also, depending on what type of test you get, you can also get your paternal grandmother’s direct line as well. Okay, you know, because men have an X and a Y, and so the Y comes direct paternal, and then the X comes direct maternal. So, right? So part of your x comes from your dad’s model, right, right? Oh, wow.

 

Amber Cabral  30:53

Okay, yeah, well, I did, we did get him to test one place, but, you know, he’s no longer with us. But you know, I’m keeping his things because now I know Right,

 

Nicka  31:01

right? Because there may be other opportunities, but I mean literally, I’ve, I’ve had scenarios where, like, one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on is because of DNA, and I would have not found it because of DNA. Here I am. My family’s from low on horsetown, Mississippi Delta. Ain’t nobody think about it, right? And we share DNA with people across the river in Mississippi, and then further, just along the Florida parishes in Louisiana. And why? Why do we have these three distinct pockets? Like, what’s up with that? And my hypothesis was it’s probably slavery, like, it’s got to be slave related, and that’s what it was. And my goal is to buy 2025, to get the database to 10,000 people, and I’m at about 8500 right

 

Amber Cabral  31:43

now. Amazing. Okay, so I have two questions. The first question is, when people are thinking about, like you like what you just said, kind of stuck with me. How do people I’m imagining what you’re gonna say, but I would like you to answer it. Still, when I get a piece of information, like, Okay, we have people here, here and here. I think a lot of us don’t know what to do after that. Really. We’re like, Okay, well, okay, I What do I do? I call somebody. Do I do? I reach out. What’s the next step? But like, you had, obviously, because you are a genealogist, you were like, Okay, let me try to make some educated guesses, right? Which is probably also you love history, so you’re aware of some of the historical, you know, implications of the you know, the ways people end up in, the places they are in. How? What do you recommend for someone who isn’t going to have that foresight already? You

 

Nicka  32:32

have to have your timelines together, you know. So when I’m looking at the three pockets of people, and I’m looking about, you know, how much DNA are we all sharing? It’s not like first or second cousin, it’s like third, it’s further, right? You know, for me, my great great grandparents were enslaved, right? That means my, my my mother’s great grandparents were enslaved, my grandmother’s grandparents were enslaved. Yep, that’s close. Yeah. We don’t ever think about it from that vantage point.

 

Amber Cabral  32:58

But that’s, yeah, that’s a reasonable like, these are people that you know, of course, depending on folks age that like, you could have been in the world with. You could

 

Nicka  33:05

have been in the world with, right? And so with that parameter, all right? So we’re third or fourth cousins. That would mean we share great, great or great, great, great grandparents. That’s taking me into the slavery year, which would justify three different locations. Well, how would it justify that slavery, especially in the Mississippi Delta, was an enterprise. There were a lot of absentee slaveholders, meaning people would live in one place and then have plantations and others that they didn’t necessarily, didn’t live there. They may not ever come there, but they girl, yes, I’ve

 

33:38

never even heard of this. Oh, okay, so explain. What now the absentee slave, absentee

 

Nicka  33:43

slave holder, okay, oh yes. We’re gonna roll the sleeves, yes, yes. So you don’t have the downward expansion of the United States or the opening up of the Deep South without the Trail of Tears and the force removed, right? Okay. And the other thing that also comes into play with that are a lot of veterans of the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War. Okay, one of the ways that they were compensated for their service was through land grants. Okay, now I’ve heard that. How do you get land grants? Unless you remove the people from the land in order for you to have free land we again America. 250 is about to come up in 2026 let’s have a conversation about land grants, forced removal, and then the down migration of enslaved people from the Upper South, which is Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, down to the Deep South, Alabama, Mississippi, George, Tennessee, all these places. And so what happens? These plantations become huge. So you were, you might only have had maybe 100 or 200 acres in Virginia. You get a land grant in Mississippi, and it’s 2000 Wow. And you need all, you need people to work all that land. And so you gotta move right? So that’s how between what like 1830 and eight. 1940 that that decade is when you have the majority, a huge migration of enslaved people going from the Upper South to the lower South. So you can kind of quantify when folks so a lot of times when those of us that have deep south roots, we start looking at our family history, you get back to 1870 and all you have is Virginia. Well, where? Oh, okay, Maryland, where it’s a whole state, right? So with the plantations that I’m talking about, again, absentee owners, you guys, you got free land, yeah, okay. Need to be there, right? So then you get you either live on one part and then continue to acquire land across the river on the other side. So if you’re in Mississippi, you acquire plantations Louisiana, vice versa, right? And you might have three, which, in the instance of this slaveholder, they had three. And that’s how you have the three pockets of people related. They all come from the same people to manage the land. Yes, yes. And with this population, I knew, I was like, Okay, this these were these connections are coming, like, early 1800s like, That’s how far back this is, in order for all of us to be manifesting this DNA. So if I find out who the eldest people are, that’ll basically tell me the trajectory of everybody who’s coming up in my matches. And that’s exactly what happened. And the elders were all born before the founding of the United States. Some of them we know were born in Africa, like it flat out, says that they were in their names, and their names tell us that they were okay, and wow, right,

 

Amber Cabral  36:32

right. So it’s so much yummy information.

 

Nicka  36:37

There’s a there’s a lot of there, there, but what I’ve learned in researching this community is that, like the remnants of these people who survived this transatlantic slave trade, like let’s let’s give them honor with that absolutely. So they survived the transatlantic slave trade, they’re brought together in these communities with people they don’t know, and they make community for themselves, and they their children intermarry, and then that’s how we end up. And literally, our folks are still in Ventress and new roads, Louisiana, right? New Orleans, Baton Rouge. I can tell you where everybody is at right? It I’ll find one obituary, and that’ll send me to 100 people. Wow.

 

Amber Cabral  37:18

So okay, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve done work with ancestry. To you, you’ve connected me with the people. And one of the things that they, you know, when I went and trained for them, they handed me and my boyfriend went with me. He we both got a test, and I’ve done it. And so I was like, Well, you take them. You and your dad should do it. And so one of the things that happened when they handed us the test was, we don’t get your DNA. There was this right? There’s a whole Right, yeah, they were delivered like, I can’t see it, you know, just right, this is your case, right? Right? What are some ways that we can, like, just make sure, like, one of the things I do personally is when I meet someone that is curious about their backstory and is potentially open to DNA and maybe hesitant or want someone that they like. In my case, I want my father or my grandfather to do this, but they’re nervous, right? What I usually do is, honestly, I send them, like, your work, like, I’m like, Oh, listen, please take a look at this, because it’s so interesting. Like, how much you can uncover, right? And so that has been an incentive. But like, Do you have any other recommendations to like, overcome that reservation? Like, what you can like, say, do usually

 

Nicka  38:28

well, so for me, it’s relationship building, yeah, because if it’s not the DNA, it’s I don’t trust you to tell you my story, my information. It’s all rooted in the same place of distrust and like and recognizing that if I, if I, you know, emote this out, or if I share it with you, you’re going to do something positive with it. You’re not going to use it against me, like there’s, it’s fear. All of it, a lot of it, is rooted in fear. And so for me, if it’s someone, won’t talk to me. I hear that all the time when I’m coaching people. I wish my aunt would say something and I go, you got to cultivate that relationship, yeah, where she gets to a place where she is like, all right, she feels compelled and like you’re not. It’s not going to be trivialized. You’re going to take it seriously, like you have to nurture that relationship. I’m not, I’m not above food bribery. People love food. People do love food. Listen, bring that pie over. You know, cook that roast. Do whatever it is, because they need to know that you’re invested in them and, and that’s, that’s what I did, like, I think I’ve mentioned the story to you before. I was, I’ve been doing this for so long. And my own grandmother, I knew she was the funeral Maven. We all have the funeral Maven, the one lady in the family that goes to every

 

Amber Cabral  39:43

funeral, like she’s gone every funeral, and she has every obituary from

 

Nicka  39:48

the funeral. What you said? Yeah, I’m telling you, so she so she was, she was the Maven, yes, you know, she would send us a stack of obituaries from Chicago, right every year. And I was like, Mama, who are these people? Right? Know, we went to church for him, like, and so I knew I had made it when my grandmother gave me her obituaries. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s a stamp of approval, right? And it wasn’t, and it wasn’t a conversation where she sat down with me and said, Baby, you know, it wasn’t like, on soul food or something, right? I’m

 

Amber Cabral  40:16

gonna give you the No. She was like, here, I’m gonna give you the information she just handed me. And, I

 

Nicka  40:20

mean, it was, it was the problem for her father’s funeral. I had never seen it like it was, I mean, scores of folks. And I was like, wow. Like, I knew. Like, then, okay, granny. Like, Granny gets it. She, she, this is her saying. This is her saying, she trusts what I’m doing later. You know, explaining a relationship in the family, my mom was attempting to do it. My grandmother told my mom to shut up and tell Nikka, tell it. Tell Nikka to do it right. And I was like,

 

Amber Cabral  40:48

that’s amazing. That’s super honor. Like, I

 

Nicka  40:50

was like, wow, okay, I made it, granny, like it was a thing, but I had to invest the time. I had to show and prove that I was I wasn’t here casually, yeah, that I was here to preserve. And you really have to do that meaningfully. And for some of the elders, you may be the only phone call from a young person that they get where someone is calling to check on them and see how they’re doing. And I have my list of elders that I call, and unfortunately, throughout the years, that list is getting smaller and smaller, yeah, and so libraries

 

Amber Cabral  41:22

a lot, like, every time a person passes a library burn that is seared into my brain, like, because it there are, you know, again, just because I have recently lost my father, I understand, like, the it is a treasure trove of information, right? Because people keep things you just would never expect. Like, I found, like, old pay stubs from when he was, like, 20, right? And I’m like, wow, I have. I found receipts, like my father used to have. My father had a Corvette before I was born. Did you know this? I knew he had a Corvette, but I didn’t know anything about it. It’s just like a thing I heard. I found photos of the Corvette. I found repair receipts from the Corvette. So, like, for me, just even that was amazing. But like, you know, again, going back to, you know, Hawkins, right? Like, I resonated so much with the idea that part of the reason that this is important is because it’s still living like it’s still moving. And so they are really deliberate about, okay, well, even if we can’t go back any further, we have enough where we should still be going forward, let’s at least get connected with who is around now, because our story is eventually going to be the story that other people are looking and

 

Nicka  42:28

people are again, like I said, at some point you’re going to become an OG, yep, at some point, right? And and where the future of all of this is is in community research. It is no longer it from the vantage point of my tree and my lineage and and even with the old garter genealogy, my patriot, right? It’s no we’re no longer at that place where we’re at is where large scale projects are being built by regular everyday people or academics, where they are connecting living people to these events and things and communities that are historical. And, you know, at some point, there’s going to be a time where, just like how I wanted my family to Google their name and pull up the website to our community. Now, it’s no longer going to be that. It’s going to be, oh my gosh, my ancestor was enslaved by Saint Louis University and or my ancestor was enslaved and lived at Montpelier. Or my ancestor was, uh, survived the Tulsa race massacre, right? That’s where we are. That’s where we’re. That’s the foundation of where, like, it’s shifting that much

 

Amber Cabral  43:34

information now, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s incredible. Okay, photography,

 

Nicka  43:41

my my other life, right? Because

 

Amber Cabral  43:44

you know you are multi hyphenate, yo, um. Talk to me about, talk to me about your passion for photography. Obviously, we know it’s going to connect to the storytelling, but I specifically wonder, like, you know, because you are your historian, you’re, you know, you’re collecting data on people’s histories and your own family history and helping others uncover that. What role does photography play in that?

 

Nicka  44:05

Oh my gosh, that’s why I had to ask the question. Well, I mean, yummy, it well, because the thing is, one of the things that folks like often seek are photos of their family. Yes, and I don’t think that folks like, I don’t think they realize that for a lot of people, getting your picture taken, or, as they would say, getting your picture made, was a big deal. And for those of us that have deep south roots, sometimes the picture, the first picture you have of your family, would not be until they made it to Chicago, and they would sit for a portrait, and they would send it back home to all the people that are there. So you’d see, you know, yep, you know. And very, rather, very all of that. So people are constantly, they’re constantly searching for photos. And you know, if they didn’t, unfortunately, like with my family, I remember hearing about the same granny with the funeral program. Yeah, she played basketball. I didn’t know that. She told me about the fact that she played basketball and that grandmother was born in 1916 so think about her

 

Amber Cabral  45:06

being in like, Where was she even allowed to play

 

Nicka  45:09

this? Listen, and the fact that they had to apologize in front of the church because they were girls playing basketball, my grandmother refused. Come on, listen. That’s in your DNA. Come on now, right?

 

Amber Cabral  45:19

It really is rebelliousness, that’s it’s nice to know it is.

 

Nicka  45:23

It’s there, it’s there. But I bring up that story because there were photos of her in her little basketball tire, but they, but they went up in a house fire. There was even a family Bible that’s her that had all the stuff in there. My great grandfather told, come down and get this stuff. My grandmother them, they’re up in Chicago and Detroit and all the places living they lie, come and get it. Then he burnt the house. Now, so, like, that’s why, again, that’s why. That’s the beauty of our environment now, is you can upload it and scan it, so if it gets lost, or whatever, somebody’s got it. So people are constantly looking for photos. And for me, especially if I’m photographing a wedding, I want to get all the generations in one photo. Because a lot of people don’t think about if there are four generations here, like, let’s have that captured, or the bride with her grandmother. Or, you know, even, um, gosh, like recreating pictures. People love to do that now too. I like to see that. Yeah, I like the 80s ones personally. And the 80s ones are good. They have the outfits, right? And, you know? And I’m talking like, when the, when we have the square, yes,

 

46:28

a lot of them had that little sepia like,

 

Nicka  46:32

or, or, if you open up your picture to start a turning colors, yes, because of the, because of the processes. And

 

Amber Cabral  46:37

then the, the ones that have the little like, it’ll say APR and 81

 

Nicka  46:42

right in the year, in the corner, like Olin Mills, all the, all the things, right? Exactly. Yeah. So kinds of records in that, right? So I’m constantly, I’m constantly looking for photos and pictures, and then I, you know, even some people now where you don’t have images of people. I’ve worked with one of my photography buddies, takesha Jefferson, she’s incredible with how she reimagines, like historical images, but she creates them a lot of times, using her own children. But she’s learned how to use sort of like AI to replace different features. So it’s not her kids, but it looks like wet plate photography. And you know, she even imagines her ancestors and different people in her lineage. And when we were doing a show for black Progen, when we did, I think, four shows where we did the family histories of people who had been lynched or suffered through racial violence, and I we didn’t have pictures of these folks, so I said, Hey, I want a visual to show. Can you create something that would stand for this person? And she did it in her backyard with her phone, like, and it’s nuts, like, when you see you’re like, you did this with your and she most of the time she’s using her phone.

 

Amber Cabral  47:49

So you are one of the things that so the benefit of you being a genealogist is, obviously, when you’re taking pictures, you’re thinking about that. You’re thinking about the legacy that’s being left. You’re thinking about the stories that will be told. You’re thoughtful about who’s being captured, right? Are you telling people this? Like, are you letting people know when you’re doing it? Like, Hey, I just want you to know. Like, these are the people that you have in this photo. No, I just, I just, I would be so compelled to encourage people to, I, you know, like, keep this, be thoughtful about it

 

Nicka  48:14

well. And one of the ways, I think, one of the ways that I do that, is, I’m like, be mindful print. So many people do not print images anymore, right? Cloud and what, and what was, honey, both you need both because, because, I mean, and I don’t think, lose that phone, it’s over. You lose the phone, it’s over. Or not only that, but like, you know, ivanise, who’s 17, and it hit me when she was younger, because I was like, Where are all my pictures of her? Like, I like, we’ve got, like, school photos, but like, the candid like, yeah. And I’m like, it’s all on a device, yep. And so you have to be mindful about printing, making sure you’re printing on like, archival paper so that it doesn’t disintegrate. And, like, you know, when you get albums and things printed, like to be mindful that it’s on archival paper and acid free, and how you store things. I mean, you know, that’s a whole other podcast about, like, storage and all that kind of stuff. But when I’m taking the images, a lot of times, like, I’m not even, you know, I’m most of the time, I’m there for the moment, like I’m there to capture the moment, and especially if it’s a if it’s a wedding, the bride, the group, are not they’re consumed. They’re consumed by everything, not maybe in the moment, but like, when you sent them their photos, I may have, like, added a little blurb in there, like, just so, you know, this is important, you know what, usually what I do is I will, just because I’m, like, an in the moment person, yeah, the password is always going to be something that happened. Oh, I love I always do that. And they always, they’ll be laughing, like, oh my gosh, I totally forgot about that. Yeah. And I love to see what they find when they start going through the images. And usually they’ll say, I can’t believe you. Oh my gosh, it is yes, yeah. It’s the element of surprise with that for me. And I definitely think I got that from my dad, because one of the things he did leave me was, and this is also an admonishment you can. Always Be the person taking the pictures. At some points, you’ve got to be in them. So my dad was always the one with the camera, always right, because he was always taking pictures of other people. But then his his esthetic was like everyday life. And so I have pictures of my dad shaving. Oh, wow. In college at Clark, Atlanta. Oh, wow. Like, okay, he, so he’s on campus. I have pictures of my father leaving to go to school from so he was a

 

Amber Cabral  50:26

photographer as well. Then, yes, okay. He was like, wow. Because I’m like, why would you have a picture of yourself shaving? He just, like, just school selfie, old

 

Nicka  50:33

school selfies. And so he, he, you know, my dad, even at one point, had all the equipment to, like, develop. He was supposed to teach me how to do that before he died. We never got a chance. Got a chance to do it. So, like, I have his cameras, like I have my great grandparents cameras, like, I have a ton of, like, different historical things like that, but he loved that. And then there’s, like, my father even got into video. So I have video of my grandparents, and my dad is, like, 1920 years old, like his first, like camcorder like, images of my older siblings, videos, and so because I’m the one that has all of it, I’m sending them to my siblings, and they never, they’re like, I oh my gosh, I haven’t seen this in so long. So it’s there’s something to be said about about being the keeper of the stories, right? Whether it’s the moving images, the still images, are they documents and bringing all this stuff together, the richness

 

Amber Cabral  51:22

of all of this is just so it’s so fantastic. Okay, I would love for you to tell us what black Progen is, and then I have one more question. Okay, well, black

 

Nicka  51:30

Progen is, oh, it’s a collective of family historians, genealogists, from, you know, Silent Generation and baby boomers all the way down to millennials and Gen Z, and we just kind of get together and talk about nerdy genealogy stuff. But what’s interesting is, you know, it’s been a while since we’ve, you know, recorded, like, one of the last episodes, but people are still finding this little show on YouTube. And, like, I just, I’m amazed, because I’ll get an email from people like, oh my gosh, I watched this, and I’m like, but that’s the timelessness of it and the fact that it’s still helping people. And it was more than 130 episodes, and I was a ton of episodes. I was like, How did like when you’re in the moment and you’re recording it like that, it doesn’t feel like, Oh, it

 

Amber Cabral  52:13

does for me. But yes, there will be a moment where it won’t feel

 

Nicka  52:17

there will be a moment where it’s not gonna feel like that, and you’re gonna forget, you know, but that’s the beauty is that people, it’s still helping people. It’s still timeless. It’s been all those years, it’s still funny. It’s still, you know, so has all the crazy stuff going on. But the thing is, we all came together to do it because we noticed that there wasn’t a voice like that where you could hear us, right? You could hear us, you know, compare, you know, like tuck and Biggie, to write different situations, and people would know what we were talking about, exactly, right? Yes,

 

Amber Cabral  52:47

right, that right. Okay, so I asked this question. There’s so many other things I could ask, but I’m going to be respectful of your time today, only today, only today, or another day. So respectful. I’ll be respectful. So I ask everyone this question in the podcast, and it’s because the show’s called guilty privilege. And I call it that because tends to be the people think of privilege as something to feel bad about, or they hide it, or, you know, they are defensive about it. And so what I’m hoping to accomplish with this show is to help people understand that, like, privileges can look all kinds of ways. It’s not the stuff that you necessarily, you know, immediately think of, but even if it is those things, those things can be used to help create connection and impact. And I feel like you’ve touched on, like, literally, the way that that could show up in this entire conversation. So my question for you is, what is one privilege that you have, that you refuse to feel guilty about?

 

Nicka  53:38

Hmm, I would say one privilege that I have, that I refuse to feel guilty about, is being a connector. Because it’s not for my edification. It’s to help other people. It’s to sow into their lives. And that’s, that’s really, that’s really what I’ve been put on earth to do, yeah, yes. You know, the storytelling is, like, a really big part of that, but it’s to if, you know, if you need the right shade of red lipstick, and I know somebody that just started a company that has that shade, I’m gonna say Amber, oh my gosh, here’s this thing. Or, you know, oh my gosh, okay, we’re having a family. You need to Detroit. We really, we are. I should probably, you should probably go right, right. But like, you know, like, oh, there’s this thing. Okay, Amber mentioned this blah, blah, blah. Like, here, let me slide it to my cousin that that is, that’s my role, and that’s I will never, ever feel, I will never feel horrible about it, because it’s not for me. If that’s my act of service to other people,

 

Amber Cabral  54:40

to open the doors. I love that. Thank you so much for joining me, Nika, we could talk for another 40 minutes. We really could. I appreciate all of this. I hope it helps people think more critically about you know, particularly in the day and age where it’s so readily available for us to capture things, I hope that people walk away with at least the thoughtfulness of like. This could literally be history, you know, and be more thoughtful about, you know, capturing and printing. And it’s definitely changed my mind about that. So I really appreciate it.

 

Nicka  55:09

I’m glad it seeped on through. Yeah.

 

Amber Cabral  55:13

Okay. Intro, Josh, are you sleep? Okay, so the way the intro goes after the train passes is, I am sleepy. Is it’s like that midday, like, okay, yeah. The way the intro goes, Huh, yeah. So the way the intro goes, I’m gonna talk to this camera, and I’m going to introduce you, and you’re kind of going to act like that camera is like another person that you’re meeting, right? So you want to kind of look and then look back and, you know, smile, kind of a warm thing where I’m like, hey, this, right? That kind of energy. You don’t have to say anything other than I’ll turn to you and say welcome or something. And then after that, I have to do a drop for this camera. And then we have to take, excuse me, a couple pictures. How much time do we have? Close? We have five minutes. Okay, great. So let me get this intro Correct. Let me be one. Take Drake over here. All right, come

 

Nicka  56:16

on girl. Now that he doing Instagram reels, we gotta have a whole conversation about that. Okay, sure. Do influencer. That’s funny. Okay, okay, right.

 

Amber Cabral  56:25

All right. So do you, how do you want me to introduce you? You

 

Nicka  56:30

can just do Nika Smith either way, yeah? But like, do

 

Amber Cabral  56:32

you want me to say that you’re a genealogist? Yeah? Okay, right? You want me to say photographer and genealogist?

 

Nicka  56:36

Listen when I when Jean Marie interviewed me last week. She was like, Why did you say you were writer? I was like, I thought because

 

Amber Cabral  56:42

I added so many things. I mean, I have a bio here.

 

Nicka  56:46

You just, I know it’s not all the things. There’s a lot of

 

Amber Cabral  56:49

things. Yeah, okay, documentary, filmmaker,

 

Nicka  56:51

whatever I was, I had made a documentary. I don’t have know what I was doing, but I made it right, kind of like, they’re all like bullets.

 

Amber Cabral  57:06

They’re all kind of big, okay, we talked about man, we talked about history, we talked about the equity of knowing where you came from, the importance of keeping the things that you come across. Okay, all right. Welcome back to another episode of guilty privilege. My name is Amber Cabral, and today I’ve had the opportunity to talk to Nika Smith. She is a genealogist, a photographer, and there is a long list of things that I cannot include here, because I will eat up the entire episode, and I instead would rather you lean into our really, really rich conversation about why it’s so important that you document your history, the equity and privilege in actually knowing where you have come from, how important it is that you keep the information that you come across from your own family members and ancestors and also and probably the most important thing in this conversation is that You talk about what it is that you’re doing in your life so others can find you. Thank you for joining me. Nika,

 

Nicka  58:06

I’m so glad to be here.

 

Amber Cabral  58:09

One take. We good. All right. Great time to take three, four takes. We

 

Nicka  58:13

did it. Listen. All right. Wrap up machine.

 

Amber Cabral  58:17

Do this one drop, and then we’ll do photos. And then, I promise you, I’m Amber. Cabral. This is guilty privilege. I know exaggerated, exaggerated. Give you a pause. Okay, we losing this mic a little bit again. Josh, okay, I’m Amber Cabral, and this is guilty privilege. All right photos. Thank

 

58:43

you for this. That was my married

 

58:46

soul house.