How a DNA test unlocked the answers to one woman's ancestry

Brut America

"I'm African American, so I'm a product of slavery. I don't know where I come from."   Then, Sahara Williams took a DNA test...

Transcript

00:00my african-american african ancestry results just came back and for those

00:04that don't know i'm african-american so i'm a product of slavery so i don't know

00:10where i come from

00:18dear sahara it is with great pleasure

00:22whoa whoa what's that you share maternal genetic ancestry with the takar people in cameroon

00:29what it just like hits me like oh my gosh like this is where i'm from and then it's kind of just

00:37an overwhelming amount of emotions that i'm feeling all at once yeah you know that where

00:42your your ass is coming the only thing that's so good my poor ancestors thank you what the

00:53that's so crazy for my whole life we basically thought that we were either from kenya or from

01:02ghana and so getting those answers and seeing cameroon which was something that i've never even

01:08like thought of never expected in a million years so i was more just overwhelmed

01:24so

01:27my uncle who was a patriarch of our family he passed away in january and he was

01:33around 90 years old and his biggest thing was always to find where we came from it's

01:40still very hard though to trace specifically family lineage due to slavery a lot of those

01:47records are destroyed you don't have all like the exact um access to figuring those things out

01:55so it's kind of more of a jigsaw and putting pieces together and seeing where you can make

02:01things fit and make things make sense i think finding out your ethnicity especially as a black

02:05american gives you that sense of identity it gives you something to believe in that's bigger than

02:11yourself you notice that you don't get to say that um you know i'm a little irish i'm a little italian

02:26i'm a bit french like you don't get to say that when you're black we are viewed as such a monolith

02:31and we have been forever it doesn't matter if you're a nigerian immigrant it doesn't matter if

02:36you're an immigrant from the congo it doesn't matter if you're an immigrant from kenya you

02:40are just black when you get to america you don't get to have a separate identity outside of your

02:45blackness and i'm so so so so happy that i am an african-american because i think that we did an

02:54amazing job of creating a culture after one was stripped away from us and having a culture that

02:59is very impactful and very much mimicked worldwide and i know that if i see another

03:05black person walking down the street that we probably most likely had fairly similar experiences

03:10in america but it's nothing like this feeling of belonging in a way that just isn't on the color of

03:21my skin it's scary because it's changing who you are i have this whole ethnicity that has been a

03:33part of me that i've literally never had any idea about until now and so it's like am i gonna go

03:41am i gonna visit am i gonna live there am i going to raise my kids with cameroonian culture will

03:47they get a cameroonian name like it's a lot but i think it's exciting as well as it is daunting

04:03i will randomly just generate a few winners through this app that i have and then i will

04:11be sending out tests once i purchase them i also encourage so many african-americans or caribbean

04:19black caribbeans or anyone that is a descendant of slave trade to find these things out because

04:26i think these things are very necessary they're necessary to know where you come from and i think

04:32that's the only way to know where you're going and i think everyone needs that peace to one

04:38have closure i think that was a big thing for me was just closure i wanted to know i needed to know

04:55i was also getting a lot of response from people that were cameroonian that were reaching out to

05:00me and saying like sister welcome home like message me whatever you need um when you visit

05:07you can stay with me i can teach you all about everything that you want to know like when i got

05:11those comments i literally would like break down crying i was like these are people that literally

05:17do not know me all they know is that i'm cameroonian i have a face that looks like theirs

05:22and they're like this is your family i've never met you before but you're my family

05:28and um just from talking to them in like those five seconds by the way i feel more a part of

05:35them than i've ever really felt as an american

05:43i plan on bringing my older sister with me so i know i'm not going alone and i'm just really

05:49excited like my friends from cameroon that i've met online are already like they send me like

05:54videos from cameroon as they're driving to work and to school and stuff it's just so interesting

05:59i'm like oh my god home i've never been there but home and it's really exciting to see

06:05you

Category

Transcript

Recommended