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Re: Up the slavery line: are some of your ‘blood’ relatives really ‘non-blood’ slave relativ

>>>So, backtracking say - three generations from my great-grandmother, down the generation line, my beloved Great-Gran Aunts and Great-Gran Uncles may not be ‘blood’ relatives, but hustled together as part of the ‘distributed non-blood family’ members. And does it matter?<<<<<<<

My answer to the above question is NO, it does not matter.
Prior to the research of the human genome, Medical experts were interested in using bloodlines to determine certain charistics related to health, and life expectancy. today technology can tell you all of that without knowing your mudder farless your great great grand aunt.

I would not blame slavery for our penchant for communal livimg, because this is practiced all over the mother continent today, and those folks are not the progeny of Middle Passage Slavery. I have spoken to many Africans who grew up in a compound where the father had multiple wives, and where there were several aunties brothers and sisters all mixed in, a system which can easily accommodate a few that was not fathered by the main man.

One hundred years after the abolition of slavery, we find in the Caribbean the kind of mixing of ethnicities, and races which turns your question on its head, it is not
"Is this great aunt really my blood relative" But "Could this total stranger, actually my true blood great aunt?" Crazy as it may seem the answer more often than not, is "Hell Yeah"

This emerged out of a game I used to play with my Grand father who was seventy five years , when I was about 4.He was born in the village and virtually knew everyone. As we looked over the main road on evenings I would pick out folks who were never associated with the long punkin vine of the family, not even far far far cousin, and I will ask him, how is he or she related to us. Without haeitation he will say well on your mothers side......and on your fathers side......Very soon you understand that there are virtually zero degrees of separation, and your old grand aunt is really your blood relative, if you trace the vine long enough.