Recent Blog Entries: Anything Inspirational

Genealogy

You’re probably wondering how genealogy could be connected to the fictional stories I write about in the Guilty series.

For me, it’s another avenue to fuse the missing links in my family tree. The hunt begins with interviewing the eldest family member who either can’t remember, or refuses to recall the events in the past. I have a distant cousin who informed me it makes him physically sick to think, or talk about it. I’ve staged sit-ins at the county library in the genealogy department minutes before closing because I’m one click or microfilm away from finding that one elusive relative.

Then there’s the must have birth and death certificates that turn out to be someone else’s relatives. It’s like digging for treasures locked away in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh. The excitement, the awe, and the blur vision that consumed me happened when I discovered my great-grandfather’s 1912 draft card only to get a headache from the recorder’s scribble. Even a magnifying glass can’t perform miracles.

My heart pounded with anticipation when I located “the” slave schedule. Unfortunately, slaves were lumped together, not by age, sex, or families. It’s the copy of a death certificate that renders me speechless. Many certificates list deaths as “about 60 yrs”—what does that mean? Or birth mother’s name—unknown. That’s it! It’s sad, but in some cases true. It wasn’t uncommon from babies to be separated from their mothers as they were sold into slavery. I give my ancestors their own personalities, physical descriptions, and of course, attitudes. At least one of them appears in each of my novels.

There’s nothing like reading a story, choking of that sip of soda, falling out of the chair, and yelling, “Hey, I heard Aunt Peabody mention her grandma or great-cousin.

The Jamieson Legacy

The Jamieson Family Legacy series follows the lives of the two Jamieson brothers in Boston, Kidd and Ace and their cousin Cameron from St. Louis.

Kidd, the older brother, is struggling with anger and resentment issues toward his absentee father who never married his mother, but had the audacity to demand his illegitimate sons carry his last name Jamieson. Ace, on the other hand, is on a collision course with disaster as he shows how much a “chip off the old block” he is when it comes to women. Their highly educated MIT graduate cousin, Cameron Jamieson, is all about saving his family from self-destruction. Through genealogy research, Cameron’s mission is to show his cousins their worth as eleventh generation descendants of a royal African tribe and give them a choice: to be angry black men or accept the challenge to become strong successful black men.

The Jamieson men in this three book series are challenged with accepting that the past and the present are both in God’s hand.  Without Him they can’t move forward toward their future blessings. The bonus storyline is one that progresses the story of the much-loved Grandma B.B. character from author Pat Simmon’s previous Guilty books and her new sidekick, Mrs. Valentine.