ISSN 0027·934X

NATIONAL
GENEALOGICAL
SOCIETY
QUARTERLY

March 1984
VOLUME 72 NUMBER I
 THE GENEALOGIST'S ASSESSMENT OF
ALEX HALEY'S ROOTS
By ELIZABETH SHOWN MILLS, F.A.S.G., C.G., and GARY B. MILLS'

The American Bicentennial celebration spawned hundreds of new family

histories. thousands of bumper stickers, and millions of lapel buttons; but
nothing had the tremendous impact upon the psyche of America as did Alex
Haley's novel, Roots: the Saga of An American Family. When Haley cried
"My God! ... I found you! Kunta Kinter', he tugged the heart strings of the
uprooted peoples of America, and cheers arose from all cultures in which
ancestors arc revered. As is true with any work of such import, it was also
challenged. A public schism resulted between those who accepted Roots and
those who were disappointed by its flaws. As Hamlet might have expressed the
issue: "To believe or not to believe- that is the question."
For those who are sincerely interested in the field of genealogy, the question
goes much deeper. At stake is the future of genealogy as a legitimate scholarly
pursuit. At stake is the whole body of standards, the academic "code of ethics,"
which is at last developing in genealogy. At slake is the right of genealogists to
use any and all of the best archives of America and receive the same degree of
respect and the same degree of assistance that the scholar of history routinely
receives.
Among archivists and professional historians alike, genealogists have suf-
fered a reputation for academic mediocrity, for a naive acceptance of anything
told them or anything that appears in print, a reputation for shallow research,
amateurish methodology, and poor standards. This general charge is no longer
just; countless genealogists arc doing superb work. They have fought an uphill
battle for several decades to introduce rigid standards into the study of
genealogy and to convince the millions of genealogical newcomers of the
crucial importance of these standards.
Then came RoOfS, a book advertised as an authentic family history, as the
ultimate expression of the black experience in America. despite the caveats of
some leading black historians. This saga has been hailed as the epitome of
genealogical success, even though serious questions were raised about the
validity of Haley's African and American episodes. Roots has been adopted
within public schools and universities as a tool for the teaching of Southern and
Black History, and it has been used as a banner by avant-garde historians, who
claim to find morc reality in oral tradition than in documentary evidence. It has
also been accepted, unquestionably, by legions of neophyte black genealogists,
naive as all genealogists initially are, who believe Roots should be the model for
their own work.
The question of Roots' validity as a black family history is an important one
to genealogists of all races. Although some Americans have been conditioned
to superimpose racial divisions upon almost all aspects of life, such academic
distinctions cannot exist in the science of genealogy. No ethnic group has a
36 National Genealogical Society Quarterly

monopoly upon oral tradition or documentation, literacy or illiteracy, mobility

or stability. Among all peoples, each individual and family is unique; yet
certain characteristics are basic to humanity and can be found in every ethnic
group. It is true, at the same time, that certain procedures in the pursuit of
black genealogy do differ from those in the pursuit of English genealogy, that
the pursuit of ancestral research among white Creoles of Louisiana is different
from that among the Pilgrims of Massachusetts, that research in Virginia
differs from research in Tennessee, that research on black families in Alabama
differs from that on black families in New York, Geographical and cultural
differences do exist, but they coexist with the basic similarities of all
mankind.
If genealogy is to be accepted as a legitimate field of study, of the same value
to society as geography or diplomatic history, it must be governed by a set of
standards; one set of standards that must apply to everyone. Moreover, every
genealogist worthy of the name must be able to discern good genealogy from
poor genealogy, and no one can accept mediocrity without significantly
damaging the progress that the science of genealogy has made. Every family
historian needs to possess the ability to critically appraise the work that others
have done, to learn from the strengths of others and to profit from their
mistakes. A critical analysis of Alex Haley's Roots provides to all genealogists
an unparalleled opportunity to debate the application of standards, the
effectiveness of various methodologies, the crucial importance of interpreta-
tion, and the limits of literary license.
A half dozen years ago, I was in the same position as many university
professors of Southern and Black History. The appearance of Roots breathed
fresh student interest into the humanities. A generation of youth who equated
history with a boring litany of dates, wars, and elections suddenly realized that
history was real. Alex Haley had proven to them that it could be as exciting as
anything the television networks ever produced from sheer imagination.
Students of Black History and Southern History wanted to study Roots rather
than Frank OWsley's The Mind oJthe South or John Hope Franklin's The Free
Negro in North Carolina. I
As I began to comtemplate the best way to legitimately incorporate this
novel into a university-level study of history, as I compared Haley's depiction
of slave society with the concepts I have drawn from my own research and
writing, as I reviewed the reams of press literature that were generated, and as
I discussed the issue with my colleagues, there existed One element that
troubled me more than any other. Certainly historical inaccuracies existed in
Roots. No one's work is entirely free from error, but even the extent and the
magnitude of the obvious problems found within Roots were not as disturbing
as a fundamental deficiency that I noted among academic historians and
genealogists. Professor Oscar Handlin of Harvard best expressed this problem
(although he used the word "anthropologists" instead of "genealogists") in his
commentary: "The historians say, 'Well, the anthropology must be correct:
and the anthropologists say 'Well. the history must be correct.' But if you add
them together, there are a lot of interesting elements which raise the question
of how a book like this can be successful..,2
 Alex Haley's Roots 37
The crux of the problem was that no one had considered these elements
together. Both the supporters and the detractors of Roots, on the academic
level, were scholars of either history, or genealogy, or anthropology. Each
recognized the problems within his own realm of expertise but did not realize
the extent of the problems overall. There did not exist a cadre of scholars in
Black History who were qualified to judge good genealogical work. nor did
there exist a body of genealogical experts with solid training in Black History.
As I particularly discussed this deficiency with my wife and colleague,
Elizabeth Shown Mills (who had been working with Southern Black genealogy
for many years), it became increasingly obvious to me that I could not
conscientiously teach, as history, such a controversial novel without first
resolving the interdisciplinary conflicts that existed. We also realized that we
were in a unique position: while each of us, individually, faced the same
handicaps as other historians and genealogists, we did have, in combination,
the requisite background to make an interdisciplinary analysis of Roots as a
tool for the teaching of history and genealogy.
The task was to consume years, rather than the weeks or months that we
anticipated, and it proved to be only half of a dual analysis that eventually
appeared. Our work stopped at the water's edge. We backtracked, through
Tennessee. North Carolina, and Virginia. the Afro-American ancestry pre-
sented in Roots. as well as that of the masters who allegedly owned Haley's
progenitors. Our findings, which exceeded the most dire projections we might
have made, were published in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biogra-
phy as the lead article in volume 89 (January 1981). Meanwhile. separate work
was being done on Haley's Gambian chronicle by Professor Donald R. Wright
of the State University of New York-Cortland, a specialist in African
pre-history with extensive experience in the collection of Gambian oral
traditions. In the course of one of his field trips to the Senegambia a decade
ago, Wright, in fact, had intcrviewed the same Juffure elder, Fofana, who had
spun for Haley the tale of Kunta Kinte's origins. Dr. Wright's analysis of
Haley's African experience appeared in the professional journal. History of
Africa. in the same year that Elizabeth's and my article appeared.'} The
following genealogical assessment of Roots draws principally from these two
studies, although time limitations preclude any possibility of presenting a
complete discussion of our findings or those of Wright.

ORAL HISTORY VERSUS DOCUMENTATION

The issue of Oral History vs. Documentation is the essence of almost all
problems which Haley encountered in his genealogical efforts, and it will, in
the same manner, determine the ultimate success or failure of the work of any
would-be genealogist. Family tradition is invaluable as a beginning point in the
research process. It holds the clues to ancestral identities, to the places and
lime frames in which those ancestors might be found, and to the special
circumstances in which they may have bcen involved. Utilized in this manner,
tradition is a powerful tool, but it can also be the proverbial millstone around
one's neck if one exalts tradition to a state of sacredness that it does not possess.
38 National Genealogical Society Quarterly

Haley wrote eloquently of his personal despair as his work failed to bear fruit.
As he made one Atlantic crossing, trying to envision the emotions of his
legendary Kinte, the same thought occurred to Haley that came to some
captive slaves in the middle passage who contemplated their hopeless situa-
tion-that of plummeting himself into the ocean.4 Yet, Haley's chains were
self-made. He had bound himself to the burden of proving an oral tradition,
every holy word of it. His crusade was destined for failure.
There is no such thing as the Gospel According to Aunt Lizzie. Any
genealogist who successfully traces a family lineage accepts this fact. Genera-
tions are omitted with extreme frequency in the oral begats of a family, as it
appears to have happened in Haley's case. Anecdotes undergo metamorphosis,
often to the point that they change substance entirely. Such transformations
are to be expected. Aging memories develop wrinkles just as people do.
Handed-down stories,like heirloom silver, take on a patina of their own.
To question Aunt Lizzie, to insist upon documenting each detail, is not to
question her integrity (or to "impugn" her "dignity" as Haley ha s expressed
it).s Indeed. the issue of questioning the word of another is an intrinsic one to
Roots' problems, to Roots' success, and to the course of genealogy as well.
Haley developed such an attachment to his old aunt'sstory that he could accept
no documentary evidence that deviated from it; the integrity of his family's
traditions was not to be questioned. When Haley succeeded in convincing
himself that documentary evidence was invalid and that the family's sketchy
tradition was all the documentation needed, he announced to the world that he
had traced his Roots, and most of the world accepted his pronouncement; to do
otherwise would have been to question his integrity. Genealogists for centuries
have adhered to this same tenet. They have accepted everything handed down
to them, everything they read, everything any other genealogist told them,
without documentation, because to do otherwise would be to question the other
person's integrity.
Genealogical scholarship has now advanced past this point. The most
significant achievements made in the field of genealogy, in the acceptance of
genealogy as a worthwhile subject of study, has come about because genealog-
ists have recognized the absolute necessity of documenting every fact, regard-
less of who or what its source. Haley himself recognized the need for
documentation; indeed, he made countless declarations that his work was
extensively documented, until it was proven otherwise. Unfortunately, since
that time, his advice to fledgling black genealogists has been:'
... slaves were sold and shifted much like livestock, so records were sporadic. Nor did records
reOeet things like children born from unions between white masters and black women. So to
expect these records to provide an accurate account is pure naivete. When it comes to black
genealogy, well· kept oral history is without question the best source.

The experienced historian and genealogist can only interpret this statement as
a cop-out, an attempt to excuse inadequate research , and an inference that
double standards in scholarship should exist because of past wrongs. In truth,
records of slaves were sporadic, but the same handicap is faced by genealogists
of all races whose ancestors were in the advance guard of the ever-moving
frontier. Contrary to Haley's assertion, countless records exist to document
 Alex Haley's Roots 39
white paternity of children born to slave women and white maternity of
part-black children.? Haley's ultimate pronouncement that "well-kept oral
history" (whatever that is) is the best source cannot be accepted by any
knowledgeable, successful student of family history; and if the practitioners of
this field permit someone so misinformed to stand as a spokesman for the
science of genealogy, then irreparable harm will be done to the next generation
of genealogists, and the progress that this generation has made in raising the
standards of genealogical scholarship will be eroded.
The validity of tradition as a pure reflection of historical truth knows neither
racial nor geographical bounds. In the past, genea logists who placed great
emphasis upon documentation of American lineages often relaxed their
standards when they went abroad. Some have felt that there they are closer to
the truth, while others assert that greater care has been taken in older countries
to protect the quality of oral accounts. Such genealogists are naive. The
crossing of an ocean, to Africa or to Europe, is not a holy rite of passage beyond
which oral accounts are sanctified. (In Europe, there is not heard the American
expression u to lie like a dog"; there it is said, Uto lie like a genealogist"!) The
fabrication of lineages for personal reasons, the embroidering of sagas to make
immortal heroes of mere men, have been traits basic to all peoples of the world.
The undiscriminating genealogist will, like Haley, fall victim to scams in some
cases and to his own ineptitude in others.

THE SEARCH FOR GAMBIAN ROOTS

Having failed through the use of American resources to document the origin
and the transporta tion of his legendary Kinte, Haley went to Africa. Although
he was aware that he would have to rely upon oral tradition, his methodology
violated the basic rules of obtaining oral information. After a scholar of
African linguistics suggested to him the geographic area from which his
handed-down words and phrases apparently came, Haley appeared at the doors
of that region's officials, told them the story he had learned at his old aunt's
knee, and then they went out into the countryside to question the griots (the
officia'''oral historians" of the villages). Predictably, one village entrepreneur
listened to Haley's story, recognized the potential of the opportunity, and
replied, in essence: "Ah, but yes! Of course I remember that story .... "
Unfortunately for Haley, and for the credibility of Roots, Fofana the Griol
was not a griot, He had failed to meet community standards for that important
post; and in all his years he had not earned the respect of his village. When
professor Wright interviewed Forana, shortly after Haley, the Juffure elder'
.,. showed no inclination to recite long (or short) genealogies of any families. He was eager,
however, to speak of the KunIa Kinte episode, to the extent that in the entire inverview ... Kunta
Kinte was the only individual about whom Fofana provided any specific information . Yet I
recorded nothing of the kind of information that Haley received . Before the interview was over
two inhabitants of Julfure, who had been listening to the questions and answers, began
responding, because they believed they knew some things better than Fofana. The latter yielded
his position.
On a second trip to Juffure, Professor Wright did not ask to speak to Fofana by
name. Instead he asked " to speak to the person best versed in the history of the
40 National Genealogical Society Quarterly

village and its families." According to Wright, "J was taken to speak to four
other people; Fofana's name never came Up,,,9
Even more disturbing doubts over the reliability of Haley's self-styled griol
emerged when it became known that a representative of the Gambian national
archives had visited Fofana and taped his oral account of the Kinte genealogy
(something Haley did not do), According to reporter Mark Ottaway of the
London Times, who compared that tape with Haley's published account, there
were numerous genealogical contradictions in the two versions. On the archives
tape, Fofana identified Kinte's father as Lamio. In Roots Kinte's father is
Omoro. On the archives tape, Kinte's father was the first in his family in the
village of 1uffure; in Roots, Kunia's grandfather was the first Kinte in the
village. On the archives tape, Kinte's brothers were Usula, Suwandi and Omar.
Within Roots. they are Lamin, Suwadu, and Madi. 10
The credibility of Haley's African begats has been totally destroyed; but for
the genealogical world the implications are broader. Was Haley's experience a
fluke, created by his naivete in telling first the story that he hoped to be told? If
so, the researcher with more sophisticated methodology should be able to
locate an authentic griot: Or, is it even possible to find an oral historian who
can provide the type of African family history which Haley asks us to believe?
Bakary Sidibe of the Gambian archives allegedly wrote Haley in 1973 to warn
him that he had been duped; and in that letter he stated "to get a long detailed
and sustained narrative from [a village] elder is rare." Professor Wright, who
has interviewed some one hundred Gambian griots and elders, states: "From
often disappointing experience I learned that . . . oral traditions of the lower
Gambia simply do not contain specific information about real people living
before the nineteenth century.""
In a historical, rather than genealogical, sense the significance of Haley's
saga goes far beyond the validity of his alleged begals. Haley insists that the
historial essence of his work is valid and that the Juifure narrative is an
expression of the black experience in Africa. Both reporter Ottaway and
Professor Willie Lee Rose of The Johns Hopkins University immediately
challenged Haley, reminding him that Juifure was not the bucolic, pastoral
village in which white men never set foot (although the villagers had heard
fearful rumors of toubob slavers). Indeed, Juffure was a white trading village,
two white military posts were within a mile of it, and the villagers were
collaborators in the slave trade, helping whites capture slaves from points
upriver. 12
Rose and Ottaway's challenge brought an admission from Haley that he had
taken literary license. He conceded, in fact, that "he had purposefully
fictionalized his description of Juffure [because I Blacks long have needed a
hypothetical Eden like whites have."1J In the years since, this has been Haley's
customary response to criticism. Challenges to the authenticity of his saga are
taken as a public denial of racial oppression and of the special needs of the
oppressed. After the appearance of the articles by Ottaway and Rose, for
example, Haley retorted that the reporter had made "a cheap shot. It's like
saying that Anne Frank never existed or that the whole Nazi thing was a
 Alex Haley's Roots 41

hoax." 14 In a 1979 article, Roots' author again rebutted criticism by stating:

"what really upset me most was that, also, by implication, it clearly sought to
impugn the dignity of black American's African heritage."15 However, the
black journalists and historians who appear among Haley's critics take a
different view. Film critic Eugenia Collier has written: 16
I think that I would give almost anything I own to know who my African ancestors were ... And
here is a man who had the oral tradition , the financial resources, the contacts, and the
determination to find out this very thing- and who blew it.... I believe that Haley sold out.
Capitalized on his Negro-ness. I doubt that he was ever committed to much beyond his own ego.
Otherwise he would never have permitted such a travesty on his/our history.

A1l genealogists must agree with Ms. Collier's furthur statement: "History
is sacred. If we lose our history, we lose our Selves." 17 The genealogist cannot
afford to tamper with historical truth, to whitewash his own people, to idealize
their role in society. He cannot, in his writings, distort that society to fit
whatever purpose he hopes his literary license will achieve. Too often such
distortions are incorporated into the text of conventional history, as Fofana's
tale of Kunta Kinte has now been incorporated into African oral accounts.
Almost all genealogists can cite similar examples in America in which a
fabrication has been repeated so often that it is believed to be truth. Any such
attempt to distort history ultimately obscures one's own heritage; and it can do
so to such a point that one never finds the ancestors whom he seeks.
For these, as well as other reasons, Haley did not find his roots in Africa. But
what of America? This is the question that Elizabeth will address in the next
half of this paper.
fn his 1977 Reader's Digest articie, "My Search for Roots," Alex Haley
asserted: "through plantation records, wills, census records, 1 documented bits
here, shreds there .... By 1967, I felt I had the seven generations of the U.S.
side documented.,, 18 In actuality, the same plantation records, wills, censuses,
legal conveyances, and other record categories touted by Haley not only fail to
document his story. they contradict every statement of Afro-American
lineage. prior to the Civil War. that appears in Roots. While the fictionalized
format in which Roots is presented provides its readers with almost no evidence
of sources of methodology, Haley's various writings have outlined some of his
thought progressions and research procedures, and they have spotlighted a
number of problems that are still far more common to genealogy than one
might hope, principally: illogical reasoning, inadequate historical background,
insufficient research (or inadequate use of records consulted), the warping of
documented facts to fit a specific need, careless notetaking, and poor·
to-nonexistent documentation.

BRIDGING THE OCEAN: ROOTS' APPROACH TO SOLVING

THE CLASSIC IDENTITY PROBLEM
According to Haley's family tradition, his African ancestor (Kinte alias
Toby) was brought to America through the port of Annapolis. Of course,
tradition does not supply the year, and port records do not identify by name the
forced immigrants from Africa as they sometimes do with forced immigrants
 42 National Genealogical Society Quarterly

from Europe. However, it is Ha ley's contention that Kinte arrived in Annapolis

in 1767 aboard the Lord Ligonier. and he based this decision upon two factors.
First, Fofana's account of Kinte's capture held that it occurred "the year the
King's soldiers came" to the Gambia. Second, at Lloyd's of London
(supposedly) Haley found ship rolls lying unopened in long-abandoned cartons,
which revealed that one Colonel O'Hare brought a troop of soldiers to the
Gambia in 1767, the same year that a ship sailed from the Gambia laden with
slaves, bound for the port of Annapolis. ]9
Roots had scarcely rolled off the presses before questions arose over the
validity of Haley's African-American connection. Lloyd's of London notified
the genealogical world that it has no long-forgotten records of any kind , no
unopened cartons, no ship rolls, and no records which identify the cargo of the
specific vessels they insured in that era. Reporter Ottaway further pointed out
that Haley misdated the a rrival of Colonel O'Hara (not O'Hare's) forces, and
that they did not arrive the same year that the Ligonier sailed. Moreover, the
first group of "King's soldiers" actually arrived in Gambia in 1661, 106 years
before the group of "King's soldiers" which Haley fixed upon. According to
Ottaway:20
When I asked Haley why out of all these "king's soldiers" he should have selected those under
O'Hara. he said it was because his researchers in America had indicated that his ancestor must
have been shipped to Annapolis. Maryland before 1768. The only ship he could trace which had
made the voyage from the Gambia to Annapolis during the 1760s had done so in 1767. In other
words, Haley simply found an African event to fit his American research.
On the other hand, the evidence also suggests the opposite, that Haley's earliest
American research was based upon his predetermination that the 1767 ship
was the one which carried his ancestor in its hold. According to HaJey:21
I went to Richmond. Virginia . J pored through microfilmed legal deeds filed within Spotsylvania
County, Virginia, after September 1767, when the Lord Ligonier had landed. In time. I found a
lengthy deed dated September 5,1768, in which John Waller and his wife Ann transferred to
William Waller land and goods, including 240 acres of farmland . .. and then on the second page
'and also one Negro man slave named Toby.'
"My God!" Haley exclaimed at that point, and every genealogist knows the
ecstasy of such a movement when one first finds in print the name of a
long-sought ancestor. However, the competent genealogist does not fall into the
snare of embracing as his own any man of record who happens to bear a name
identical to the one he seeks, until he gathers all possible evidence and unless
the preponderance of that evidence weighs in favor of this being one and the
same man.
At this point, Haley again failed in the identification of his African ancestor.
According to the tradition he sought to prove, Kinte (alias Toby) belonged to
one John Waller. from whom he escaped. In punish ment a portion of his foot
was cut off. The document which Haley found does show one Toby in the
possession of one John Waller. However, if Haley had not arbitrarily chosen
the date 1767 for Toby's arrival, or if he had even tested the accuracy of this
theory by searching pre-1767 records, he would have discovered that this
Waller slave Toby appeared in at least six documents prior to the arrival of the
Ligonier. 22 Clearly, if Kinte was captured in 1767, he was not the Waller slave
Toby.
 Alex Haley's Roots 43

When interviewed by a New York Times reporter on his reaction to Haley's

saga, one noted Yale professor dismissed allegations of such errors in Roots as
unimportant. Roots, he said, was "a statement of someone's search for
identity . ... It would seem to me to retain a good deal of impact no matter how
many mistakes the man has made. In any genealogy there are bound to be a
number of mistakes.,,2J However, among competent genealogists, such lax
expectations from our science arc no longer acceptable. Errors in identity
matter a great deal from a genealogical standpoint, and a single error of
identity can invalidate an entire lineage.

In the case of Haley's Roots, there are a number of such genealogical errors,
each of such magnitude that even alone it could not be overlooked. The
cumulative effect is damning. For example: according to Roots, Toby
remained celibate for twenty-two years after his arrival in America (in short, a
whole generation). Dr. Waller favored Toby over some two dozen or more
slaves that he owned, and Toby was chosen to drive the doctor as he made his
rounds of the county. In 1789, Toby married Bell, the cook for Waller's
mansion-house; and in 1790 Bell bore a daughter Kizzy, who grew to maturity
on Dr. Waller's main plantation.

Historical evidence reveals a far different story. Tax rolls clearly show that
William Waller owned no mansion-house for Bell to cook in; he owned no
buggy [or Toby to drive; he owned no plantation in this period- and no slaves.
There is no indication that he practiced medicine at all past 1770, which was a
mere three years after Kinte supposedly arrived. What the evidence does
suggest is that Dr. Waller was ill and incapable of caring for himself, much less
for others. When his father's estate was settled (four years before the arrival of
the Ligonier), Dr. Waller deeded his entire inheritance to his brother John
who, in turn , was to provide him with clothes. food , and all other necessities.
The brother John then proceeded to squander the estate. In 1768, in the
document found by Haley. Dr. Waller took back from John all that remained
of his inheritance, 240 acres and a black male named Toby. There is no further
record of this slave Toby, and in 1770 Waller sold the last of his land. Twice in
the years that followed. he executed agreements with relatives, promising to
give them the inheritance he would one day receive from his mother; and again
in these instances the conveyances appear to have been made in exchange for
their caring for him as his derelict brother had first promised. 24 it is clearly
proven that Waller owned no slaves in 1789 when Toby allegedly married Bell,
nor in 1790 when Kizzy supposedly was born. nor in 1806 when Waller is
accused of selling Kizzy away from her parents.

Not only do these facts destroy the entire substance of nearly two hundred
pages of Haley's alleged family history (the whole Waller plantation episode)
but it also calls into question the very parentage or Kizzy. Given the fact that
Waller at no time owned a slave named either Bell or Kizzy, and given the fact
that Kizzy was allegedly born twenty-two years after Toby's last known
existence, it is impossible to accept the assertion that Toby was Kizzy's
father.
44 National Genealogical Society Quarterly

GETTING TO THE ROOTS OF " FACTION" (l.E., THE

TRANSFORMATION OF GENEALOGICAL FACT INTO
SALEABLE FICTION)
If. however, one assumes that Haley neglected to use the tax rolls and
therefore did not discover that Dr. Waller was propertyless for nearly all of his
adult life. one still cannot justify certain deliberate distortions of the evidence
which Haley did uncover: According to Roots, in 1786 Waller'g brother John
fathered a daughter called Missy Anne, who became Kizzy's childhood
playmate and who eventually betrayed the faith of her black friend. Three
years later, allegedly, Dr. Waller drafted a will in which he left his slaves "to
little Missy Anne," on condition that he did not marry first. 2oS
County records do yield such a document, although it was not a will, it was a
deed of gift. By the terms of this document, Dr. Waller promised to his niece
Anne, daughter of John, three slaves he expected to receive when his mother
died. However, if Dr. Waller were to marry before his death, then the deed of
gift to Anne would be voided . One astounding discrepancy exists between the
document and Haley's version: it was actually drafted twenty-two years earlier
than the date Haley gave. By the time that "little Missy Anne" was allegedly
born, her father had been dead eleven years. By the time that Kizzy was born,
Miss Anne Waller had a husband and children of her own. 26 Under such
circumstances, there can be no conclusion but that Haley deliberately altered
the documented facts, as he did in the case of the village of Juffure, in order to
create a better story and more dramatically stage the stereotyped and
fictionalized injustice that he wanted to depict.
There is yet another major problem within Roots which hinges upon a date,
a problem that again calls paternity into question: according to Roots, on the
first Monday of October 1806, Kizzy helped her sweetheart escape. The
following Saturday, a slave trader took her on a four-day journey to Caswell
County, North Carolina, where she was immediately purchased and assaulted
by one Tom Lea. Simple arithmetic and a perpetual calendar indicate that the
alleged rape occurred 15 October 1806, yet, it was "in the winter of 1806" that
Kizzy was delivered of her "pecan-colored" child, according to Roots. 21 This
was surely the shortest pregnancy on record.
Again, in the case of Tom Lea and his family, as with William Waller, all
documents generated by the Leas contradict every alleged fact and event that
make up Haley's portrayal of his family's servitude in North Carolina: The
character of Tom Lea and his birth family was grossly distorted (as outlined in
considerable detail in our article). A similar analysis of the Lea slave household
reveals even more disturbing discrepancies. Various documents exist which
identify the slaves of Tom Lea, by name, age, sex, and relationship. Not one of
the characters in Haley's saga was ever owned by Tom Lea. 28 Again, the only
possible conclusions are: 1) that Haley's research has not revealed the actual
names of his ancestors; or 2) that his slave progenitors did not belong to the
Tom Lea whom he claims as his own forefather.
The Tom Lea estate file completely negates another major incident within
 Alex Haley's Roots 45

Haley's North Carolina saga. A very emotional episode focuses upon Lea's
alleged economic disasters, of his dispatch of his misbegotten son, Chicken
George, to England to satisfy debtors, upon his heartless sale of George's father
during his absence, and of Lea's ultimate refusal to honor the promise of
freedom he had made George before sending him away. We are told that
George enticed his father into a drunken stupor and stole his freedom papers
before going in search of his lost family. Tbis incident allegedly occurred in the
18505. Aside from the obvious point that Chicken George's presence in
England (where slavery was illegal) would have won him an automatic
manumission under both English and American law, there remains the fact
tbat Tom Lea died in the winter of 1844- 1845. Even if Haley does descend
from Lea, the hcartwTcnching episodes just outlined, which covered many
pages of his saga, did not occur. 29
Yet again, it appears that Haley "purposefully fictionalized" (to use the
words he chose for his admission of guilt in Gambia) his entire American saga
from the enslavement of his family to their emancipation at the close of the
Civil War. Haley has called his brand of fiction "faction," and he defines this
as the presentation of fact in a fictionalized format, the transformation of his
"grand passion for truth,, 30 into the passion of dialogue. In truth, it is difficult
to find any shreds of fact within Haley's "faction."
From a commercial standpoint, Haley's "faction" has been a success. From
a genealogical viewpoint, it is totally irresponsible. Family historians deal with
real people and have a moral obligation to portray their subjects honestly.
Literary license does exist, and it can be a pplied to works of fiction; but when a
genealogist (as Haley has proclaimed himself to be) publishes his "roots," he
does not have the right to villainize or slander the Tom Leas, the Anne Wallers
or the John Does who coexisted with his ancestors.
The chasms that exist between Roots and legitimate family history go far
deeper than these few problems. A litany of other genealogical and historical
discrepancies exists, embracing almost every characte"r within Haley's saga
and most of its events. Many (though certainly not all) of these were outlined in
our prior article. Professor Rose's work cited other historical faux pas within
Roots and they pointed out: 31 "These anachronisms are petty only in that they
are details .... They are too numerous to chip away at the verisimilitude of
central matters in which it is important to have fulI faith." Still, amid Haley's
melange of misinformation and misconstrued circumstances, some threads of
genealogical evidence are visible. Among those discussed in our articles are two
very exciting ones:
I. A historical connection dCleS exist between the Lea family of North Carolina and the
Walle TS of Virginia . If Halcy had pursued this, some ifnot all of his genealogical problems might
have been solved. Haley attempted to bridge the geographical gap between these two families by
inventing a slave trader who took Kizzie from one state to the other. Apparently, he did not
discover, or did not recognize the significance of the fact, that both Tom Lea's father and his
father-in-law were natives of Spotsylvania Coun ty, Virginia. where the Lea and Waller families
were neighbors. In fact, the grandparents of Mrs. Tom Lea were the original paten tees of the
very tract of 240 acres which Dr. Waller and his brother Joh n latcr conveyed to each other,
together with the slave man Toby.ll However, if the legendary Kizzy was taken to North
Carolina by the Lea families at the time thcy removed from Spotsylvania. then Kizzy was at
46 National Genealogical Society Quarterly
least a generation older than that which Haley shows. This may ex.plain the apparent gap
between the alleged birthdate of Kizzy a nd [he lasl known record of her alleged father.
2. Documents do exist showing that the WalleTs owned a crippled slave. However, the time
period was the decade before the arrival orille Ligonier. and the name of the slave was not Toby;
it was George. a name that was popular in Haley's ancestral line. While Kizzy's son was
supposedly called Chicken George, this earlier Waller slave was called Hoping [Hopping]
George. a nickname tha t would be quite appropriate for a slave who had lost half of one foot. It is
also important to note that none of the silt documents found about Toby mentioned any physical
infirmity or deformity, although such references were made time and again in the Waller
records. Moreover, the estate of Col. William Waller (father of Dr. William), to whom Hoping
George belonged and in whose household Toby appears to have been born, also contained a slave
woman Isbell. whom Col. Waller had inherited from his own father. ll
In short, various names connected to Haley's famil y tradition do appear
together in history, and certain key slave names do appear in the Waller
households. But they do not match the personal identities, relationships, and
time frames which Haley invented for them in his attempt to mold real people
from the skeletal remains of his family's tradition.
THE LONG-RANGE IMPACT OF ROOTS UPON HISTORY
AND GENEALOGY
Tn the years that have elapsed since Haley's settlement of the last plagiarism
suit filed against him, the popularity of Roots among scholars and academi-
cians has drastically waned. Eugenia Collier best expressed the disillusionment
among her ranks when she wrote: 14 "The suit was settled out of court with
Haley admitting indiscretions on the part of his research assistants. What
research assistants? I was given the impression that the work was based on
Haley's own quest. And how come he was un-knowing enough to let them get
away with copying parts of this white man 's work?"
There have been several accounts of how material from other authors of
fiction could find its way into Haley's allegedly factual account of his personal
quest for roots: vague references to slips of paper given to him by enthusiastic
audiences at his lectures or to the culling of this material by graduate students
who supposedly did not know that sources had to be identified.3s Such
explanations are at once incredible and credible. It is difficult to believe that at
any American university there could exist a body of graduate students who are
not aware that research has to be documented. However, it is very easy to
comprehend how a neophyte genealogist, who has not had academic training in
historical research or methodology, can gather reams of unorganized notes on
scattered pieces of paper, all devoid of documentation. One can make an
excursion through any genealogical library and still find people enthusiasti-
cally scribbling notes or xeroxing pages out of publications without making
adequate notations of source.
The widespread negative publicity which Roots received, after the initial
burst of public enthusiasm. has to a great extent been good for genealogy. It
has made American resea rchers more cautious, more diligent, and more
responsible. The dabblers in genealogy. who are more likely to watch Roger
Mudd's newscasts than to read Richard Lackey's Cite Your Sources,J6 have
nonetheless been made cognizant of problems that can result from sloppy
notetaking or inadequate documentation . More serious genealogical hobbyists
 Alex Haley 's Roots 47
have followed the press-mill stories of Haley's long years of research and they
have deduced that the number of years in which one pursues genealogy is far
less meaningful than the quality of the work that is done.
Yet, negative legacies left by Roots still persist. They probably will always
persist. Like Ms. Collier, we fear that the people to whom Roots could have
meant the most will be those who are the most damaged by it. In a 1972 article
in the Genealogical Helper, Haley billed himself as :'probably ... the person
most knowledgeable about black genea)ogy,',17 and in the years since, he has,
according to his own cQunt, delivered thousands of lectures to college audiences
and advised countless numbers who seek their own roots.
The fledgling field of Black Genealogy is in need of role models. Roots billed
itself as exactly that: the story of twenty-five million black Americans. When
Haley asserts that his saga "isn't the story of a family, it's the saga of a people
[because] I have charted the history of every black American,"J8 he is believed
by the masses who need a figurehead in whom they can take pride. such as
Kunla Kinte, instead of the Stepin Fetchits of yesteryear's literature.
However, society has now merely traded stereotypes, because stereotypes
are the essence of Haley's novel. Failing to find his real past, he fictionalized,
drawing from already published works the ideas and the elements that he
preferred to believe. Yet in perpetuating his own unschooled concept of black
history, in encouraging the masses to accept these stereotypes as the ultimate
experiences of Black America, he has negated in the popular mind much of the
legitimate and revolutionary research that is being done by the nation's best
black historians.
As a professional genealogist and a historian living in the Deep South and
working in the field of black family history, we have noticed in the post-Roots
era a distinct shift in the psyche of black genealogical enthusiasts. Among
those with whom we come in contact, a search for the origins of one's family
surname is guided less often by Herbert Gutman's study of black naming
patterns39 and more often by Haley's generalization that slaves always took the
names of their masters and changed their names every time they were sold. The
researcher's concepts of slavery mirror Haley's naivete rather than the
extensive econometric studies of Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman. 40 The
black genealogist of today seems also more prone to share Haley's tenacious
faith in the sanctity of his family's traditions and less willing to explore clues or
accept documents that might question the validity of what he has been told;
after all, "Mr. Haley's family tradition proved true, every word of it. Why not
mine?" Librarians and archivists as well have observed an ingrained frustra-
tion, a sense of ultimate futility, on the part of some black patrons who fear
they will not be successful because they cannot afford to go to Africa as Haley
did.
Yes, Roots filled a need that Black America has long felt, a yearning for a
literary hero with whom it could identify. It is unfortunate that this need was
filled under the guise of legitimate family history. The extent to which this
work of fiction negatively affects our field depends upon all of us, principally
upon the degree to which we adopt and adhere to the standards of research,
documentation, and publication that are set before us by the National
Genealogical Society, the American Society of Genealogists, the Association
 48 National Genealogical Society Quarterly

of Professional Genealogists, and their fenow societies of the same calibre. The
issue of standards is the ultimate genealogical issue that Roots has raised, and
it is the ultimate issue that confronts the field of genealogy as it seeks to
progress past the Roots era.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

·Professor and Mrs. Mills live at 107 Woodridge. Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. This paper was presented by
them at the NGS C onference at Forth Worth, Texas, in May 1983.
I. Wilbur J. Cash, The Mind ojtheSouth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 194 1). John Hope Franklin, The
Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943).
2. Quoted in Israel Shenker, "Some Historians Dismiss Report of Factual Mistakes in ' Roots'," New
York Times, IOApri11977.
3. Gary 8. and Elizabeth Shown Mills., " Roots and the Ncw ' Fact ion': A Legitimate Tool for Clio?", The
Virginia Magazine 0/ History and Biography 89 (Jan . 198 1): 3-26. Donald R. Wright, " Uprooting Kunta
Kinte: On the Perils of Relying on Encyclopedic Informants," History Of A/rica. g (1 98 1): 205-217. Data
from Wright's stud y is used with his perm ission in this essay.
4. PaulO. Zimmerma n, "'n Search or a Heritage," Newsweek (27 Sept. 1976), pp. 94--96.
5. Alex Haley, "There are Days When J Wish It Hadn't Happened," Playboy (March 1979), p. 216.
6. Quoted in Eliot Kaplan. "Roots: The Saga Continues," Family Weekly. 2 August 1981, p. 18.
7. For ell3m ple, see Gar y B. /\.fills' stud y. "Miscegenation and the Free Negro in Antebellum ' Anglo'
Alabama: A reexamination of Southern Ra ce Relations," JourfU)1 0/ American History 68 (June 1981):
16--34.
8. Wright, " Uprooting Kunia Kinte." p. 209.
9. Ibid.
10. Mark Ottaway, "Tangled Roots," The(London) Sunday Times. 10 April 1977.
11. Wright, "Uprooting Kunia Kinte, " p. 2 10.
12. Shenker, "Some His torians"; Ottaway. "Tangled Roots."
13. Kenneth L. Woodward with Anthon y Collings, "The limits of 'Faction'," Newsweek 89 (25 April
1977): 87.
14. Ibid.
IS. Haley, "There are Days," p. 216.
16. " Review of ROOTS II ," Fim World. 2 (1979): 30.
17. Ibid.
18. Haley, "My Search for Roots: A Black American's S tory," Reader's Digest (April 1977), p. 149.
19. Haley, ROOTS: The S aga of An American Family (Garden C ity, N .Y.: Doubleday, 1976), p. 58 2.
20. Ottaway, "Tangled Roots." Italics added.
21. Roots, p. 583. Italics added.
22. For a detailed discussion of these six docu ments, see Mills, " Roots and the New 'Faction'," pp.
9- 10.
23. Edmund Morgan, quoted in Shenker, "Some Historians."
24. Haley, Roots. pp. 230, 269. Mills, "Roots and the New 'Faction'," pp. 10-12, particularly notes
26-34.
25. Haley, Roots, p. 270.
26. Mills, "Roots a nd the New 'Faction'," pp. 12- 13, particularly notes 36-39.
27. Haley, Roots. pp. 353- 368.
2S . Mills, "Roots and the New ' Factio n'," pp, 15- IS.
29. Haley, Roots. pp. 472-522. Estate of Tom Lea, Doc. C.R. 020.S01.4, North Carolina Stale Archives,
Raleigh.
30. Zimmerman, " In Search of a Heritage."
31. Willie Lee Rose, "An American Family," New York R eview of Books. 23 (I 1 Nov. 1976); 3--4, 6.
32. John Lea to Colonel J ohn Wa ller, and James Lea to John Chapman, Deed Book E (175 1-1761),
abstracted in William Armstrong Crozier, ed., Spotsylvania County Records. 1721- 1800: Being Transcri~
tions.jrom the Original F{fes at 'he County Court House. o/ Wills. Deeds. Administrators ' and GuarditlIIs'
 Alex Haley's Roots 49
Bonds. Mar,;age Licenses. and Ustso/ Revolutionary Pensioners (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1955). pp. 191 - 192; "Lea Family," Microcopy Z.4.6P, North Carolina State Archives,
33. Mills, "Roots and the New 'Faction'," pp. 13- 14.
34. Collier. " Review of Roots II," P 30.
35. For example, see "Haley Settles Plagiarism Suit, Concedes Passages," Publisher's Weekly (25
December 1918), p. 22.
36. Richard S. Lackey, Cite Your Sources: A Manual for Documenting Family Histories and
GenealOgical Records (New Orleans: Polyanthos, 1980).
37. Quoted in Peggy J. Morrell, "Black Genealogy," The Genelliogical Helper, 26 (Sept, 1972): 411,
38. Ibid., p. 280.
39. For example. see Herbert G, Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom. 1750-1925 (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1916).
40. For example, see Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The
Econornicso/ American NegroSJavery (2 voJs.; Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974).

SOME BRITISH DESERTERS IN GEORGIA IN 1768

A PROCLAMATION. Whereas J have received information from Lewis VaJentine
Fraser Esquire, Commanding Officer of His Majesty's Sixtieth Regiment of Foot
doing duty at Charles Town in South Carolina that the following persons being soldiers
duly inlisted have deserted from His Majesty's Service and arc supposed to be come
into this Province (Georgia):
Bedson, John. 5'6". 27. brown complexion. gray eyes, brown hai r. b. Ireland
Berg. John, 5'5J/:', 20. brown complexion. gray eyes, brown hair. b. Sweden
Briest, John , surgeon "who may probably pass for a doctor," 5'6W', 28, brown complexion, g ray
eyes, brown hair, b. Germany
Burns. William, 5'9'/2", 20, brown complexion, hazel eyes. brown hair, b. Ireland
Burton, John, 5'IO!f{', 25, brown complexion , gray eyes. brown hair. b. England
Eimbert, George Christian, 5'10", 31, fair complexion. gray eyes. fair hair. b. Hanover
Esensec, Henry, 5'7W', 29. brown complexion, gray eyes. brown hair, b. Germany
Firsk [Frisk?J, Charles, 5'J Ijz", 29, black complexion. black eyes, black hair, b. Poland
Houghman (Ploughma n?]. John, 5'6'/2". 24, brown complexion, gray eyes, black hair, b.
Germany
Mason, Robert, 5'11 W', 22, brown complexion, gray eyes, brown ha ir, b. Scotland
Meyer, Henry, 5'8)/~", 26. brown complexion, gray eyes, brown hair, b. Germany
PaterSQn, Thomas, 5'5", 19, fair complexion, gray eyes, light ha ir, b, Ireland
Pool. Joseph. 5'5", 22, fair complexion. gray eyes, fair hair, b. England
Stollsinburg fHollsinburg?J, John. 5'5", 26, brown complexion, brown eyes, brown hair, b.
Germany
Teffcott, Francis. 5'5", 16. brown complexion. brown eyes. brown hair, b. America
Tallis. Samuel, 5'3W', 2 1, brown comple xion, gray eyes, brown hair. b. Germany
Toomey, Bartholomew, 5'7", 30, brown complexion, gray eyes, brown hair, b. Ireland

Province of Georgia at the Council Chambers in Savannah the sixteenth day of July in
the year of our Lord 1768 . ... God save the King.
/s/Jas. Wright
(Proclamation Book H, 1154-1 194, pages 128- 130, Microfilm Reel 40/ 40, Georgia Department of
Archives and History J
- Contributed by Robert S, Davis, Jr ,