Dani Allen: 0:00

My fondest memory of the Florida trip was my grandmother washing, combing, and braiding my great-grandmother's hair. I'm gonna cry like thinking about it, but um it's just generationally. My mother would do that with me. My grandmother would do that with my mother sometimes. And these are the themes that you pass down.

Crista Cowan: 0:20

Stories That Live in Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us. My mama's family is from the South, and there is this really unique migration pattern that a lot of her ancestors followed. They went from Scotland to North Carolina, North Carolina to Tennessee, Tennessee to Arkansas, and Arkansas to California. And when you look at different populations of people, you see common migration patterns. It's why ancestry DNA can give us journeys because there are common migration patterns with different populations of people. Well, the great migration is a reference to the migration of African Americans from the US South up to cities north and west. Starting in about 1910, as racial discrimination increased, Jim Crow laws were oppressive, the economic hardships in the South, we see nearly six million African American families from 1910 to 1970 migrate north, out of New Orleans, up to Detroit, out of Mississippi, up to Wisconsin, places in Chicago, and some even end up out in Oakland and Los Angeles, California. Well, my guest today is Dani Allen. I work with Dani at Ancestry, and we were at an event in Chicago, and we were talking about her family history. She was telling me a story about her grandma, and I interrupted her and said, I need you to come on the podcast and share this story. Her family was part of that great migration, and that's how they ended up in Wisconsin. And so today's story about the state of Wisconsin has some deep south roots as well because of the Great Migration. Enjoy my conversation with Dani Allen. Well, Dani, thank you so much for being here.

Dani Allen: 2:55

I'm excited to be here.

Crista Cowan: 2:57

So excited to have this conversation with you. I've had the opportunity to get to know you a little bit. Um, and you shared a lovely family history story with me. Um, but I'd like to maybe go back a little bit. Um, how long have you worked here at Ancestry?

Dani Allen: 3:09

I've been here four years now.

Crista Cowan: 3:11

Okay. And was there something in particular that brought you here?

Dani Allen: 3:15

Yeah, it was the possibility of uh being a part of releasing new records and hiring the people that could actually, you know, impact uh the consumers. I I get excited just thinking about it. And um every year there's new releases, there's new features, there's new every it feels fresh. It's not like you know, your your grandma's card catalog at the library. It is really fresh and it's really um impactful and meaningful to people's lives. I think there's a mission here that resonates with everyone. Everyone wants to know their origin story. Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 3:50

So tell us a little bit about your origin story. Where are you from?

Dani Allen: 3:53

I am originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, born and raised. Um, I come from a large extended family. Um, my immediate family, it's my brother, my sister, and my mom and dad. But um, my extended family, my father is the oldest of 11, my mom's the middle of 12.

Crista Cowan: 4:11

What? Yeah. So how do you know how many first cousins you have? Uh you ever counted?

Dani Allen: 4:16

Yeah, on the it's a lot. A lot. On on my paternal side right now, there are 35 first cousins. Um, on my maternal side, there's over 300.

Crista Cowan: 4:32

Wow. Yeah. It's like families, it's huge. That's amazing. And did you grow up like surrounded by them or going to reunions? What did that look like?

Dani Allen: 4:41

Yeah, we uh we we grew up on my I I was a lot closer to my paternal side. Um as a matter of fact, there was a point in time my grandparents actually, I lived with my grandparents. Um, but uh they were all very close-knit. And I knew my you know, my grandmother's siblings. Um, I knew my grandfather's uh two of his siblings, and they would come for regular visits. They all had moved away, and it was just a uh a very warm, inviting environment to grow up in. Lots of stories, lots of, lots of joking around, lots of dinners and uh conversation.

Crista Cowan: 5:20

So yeah, I love that. As you think about kind of that environment that you grew up in, you said lots of stories. Is there like a story that somebody told that you actually paid attention to as a kid that sticks with you?

Dani Allen: 5:34

On my maternal side, there is an interesting story. It was a whisper of a story. Um, my mom's mother and father were divorced uh by the time I think she was three, and they were still very much involved with one another. Um, but I had heard a story that my grandfather actually shot my grandmother. What yes, not not a pleasant story. She she lived. Um, but I had heard the story, and it just seemed unbelievable as a child hearing this, and no one had any details to share around it. Just it was like family lore almost. And I never had the courage to ask my grandmother. Like it just, but it was something I remember my mom saying she remembered as a child. And so um I tucked that in the back of my head and was even told I think that my grandma still had the bullet in her in her skull. Um, didn't know where that came from until I got here at Ancestry. And one of the genealogists found a newspaper clipping and asked me about it, and it actually connected a lot of dots. I was able to share that story with my mom, and my mother suddenly at four years old had these memories coming back to her around being whisked away to an aunt's house and staying with her her aunt Nellie uh for three months while her mother was in the hospital and her father ultimately went to prison for six years. But um it was, yeah, just heated argument and as things happen. So that is one story that I heard when I was a kid, and then I really didn't think about it again until Julie found the newspaper clipping on newspapers.com.

Crista Cowan: 7:17

Yeah, and it's so interesting. Like as children, we don't have the capacity to process some of the information we overhear, which is different than a story being told to you. Right. And some kids spin those up into all sorts of weird stories, right? But the opportunity of building a family tree is the opportunity to like dig in and see is this real? Is it not real? What pieces of it are true? Absolutely. Was how did you know you knew that grandmother? Oh yeah. I'm is she's still still living?

Dani Allen: 7:44

No, she passed away in 2000. Okay, and at 75. Okay. Um, she had a third grade education, was born in Florida, um, migrated to Alabama and then ultimately to uh Tennessee and then came to Wisconsin, uh a part of the migration, migrate migration, and uh looking for work and whatnot. And that's when my mom was born.

Crista Cowan: 8:07

So Okay. And so where did she meet your grandfather?

Dani Allen: 8:10

They met in Tennessee at the um the USO. Okay. And uh he was in World War II in the army, and um, yeah, I think that that was the beginnings of their story. They met because she was friends with my grandma was friends with his sister, his older sister.

Crista Cowan: 8:29

Okay. Yeah. And ultimately they make their way up to Wisconsin. Uh, do you think it was a tumultuous relationship the whole time? Or was there some like he served in the war, and I guess what I'm getting at is a lot of those men had PTSD, but we didn't have a name for it back then, right? And so is it something that maybe was part of his personality all along, or was it maybe triggered by the war and then things that happened later in their relationship?

Dani Allen: 8:51

Yeah, I do think that that it was tumultuous um once he came back. And I, you know, heard stories, he was also a Rolling Stone.

Crista Cowan: 9:01

Um Have you found any of that in your DNA? I mean, uh it'd be really interesting.

Dani Allen: 9:09

There's some there uh are a lot of connections I don't understand still uh in the DNA um matches, but definitely uh he was a rolling stone. He had other children and um I believe he there was a child he also had in Europe someplace. But the my grandmother, I think she as a housewife just trying to make ends meet, and he was gallivanting around and you know, ultimately she made a decision to to move on and he didn't like that. So yeah. Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 9:43

Um, did she move on like after this whole incident? What what kind of a life did she build for herself and her children?

Dani Allen: 9:49

She became a Jehovah's Witness um and uh went on to to marry another individual um and have five more children with that individual. So my um first seven with my um grandfather, and then my stepgrandfather, I think five more children. So um and lived a very uh basic, I would say a basic life. I um she didn't do a lot, didn't travel much. Um she's very quiet and reserved. Uh she would study the Bible with my brother and my sister and I when she babysat us, and that was was a connection point for us. We looked forward to her storytellings and she would tell us stories around growing up in Florida and what that was like for her. Um her mother, I got to meet her mother when I was in the eighth grade. She lived in Florida. Um, shark was attacked. I remember that going to visit, and uh, she had hair all down her back, silver hair down her back, and she had the bluest eyes I've ever seen. My grandmother loved and adored her mother. Her mother was like a protector for her, and um, they were really, really close. And I got to actually see that uh as an eighth grader traveling with her to go back. Her father had died at that time, so we went back to Florida for that. And my fondest memory of the Florida trip was my grandmother washing, combing, and braiding my great-grandmother's hair. I'm gonna cry like thinking about it, but um it just generationally, my mother would do that with me. My grandmother would do that with my mother sometimes. And these are the things that you pass down. And with my one daughter, this is something that I still do with her, and she's 22 years old. Like she'll say, Mom, can you wash my hair? Like she can wash her own hair, but it's a it's a connection, it's a bonding time. We we talk about things, we get close to one another. Sorry. No, I I'm I'm sorry getting emotional about it, but um uh it is my fondest mem family memory. Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 11:52

So that's beautiful. Thank you. No, thank you for sharing that. I think that that's important that um we honor those connections. Yeah, like that's so significant. The fact that you were as old as an eighth grader and your great grandmother was still living, and you had the opportunity to have that connection and that moment, I think is beautiful culturally though, and as as a black person, like hair, hair has significance. Yes, right? And so explain that a little bit.

Dani Allen: 12:21

Our hair is our crown. It is um, it is it's a part of our identity. I um I think some people don't understand um the cultural connection with the different hairstyles that black women actually have brought from from Africa with our braiding and uh our twists and our puffs and our, you know, um black hair is versatile, it is strong, it is um texture, it is and it's it it's in the caring for and knowing how to care for for uh our hair that we you know we pass those things down to our children. And the ritual of hair wash day um is a big deal, you know. You plan to not go anywhere because it's not even now, uh my husband is always my husband is a white man and he's just like, is today the hair wash day? And I'm like, it is. He's like, okay, I'm going to the gym. I'm doing you know, I'm gonna go out and work work in the yard and because you're gonna be in all day. It is still even now, I've cut my hair recently, but um uh it's an all-day event for me. Um, from the washing to the prepping to the detangling and the the combing process and whatever else I'm deciding to do with it, it's a it's it's sort of like a badge of honor. It's a glorious thing to have. And um we we we cherish these moments and what our mothers have taught us about taking care, it's restoration. It is a respite to have those breaks to actually self-care, you know, and take care of yourself. So it's a part of our our our culture.

Crista Cowan: 14:04

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And and it sounds to me like the self-care piece is important, but then also the connection, yeah. So I love that. You mentioned that your great-grandmother had blue eyes. Was she was she also a black woman?

Dani Allen: 14:17

She was um listed as mulatto on earlier census records. Um she her father was also listed as mulatto, and his mother um uh uh the same in a lot of the census records. So, you know, uh if you look at my my mom's side of the family, a lot of fair-skinned people, um, some with different color eyes. There were a few with blue eyes, um, some with like green eyes as well. Um, but the hair texture is a silkier hair texture, things of of that nature that would denote um more like European heritage. Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 14:55

Um, your grandmother, what was her name?

Dani Allen: 14:58

Ruth. Ruthie May, actually.

Crista Cowan: 15:00

Ruthie. Did and is that what people called her?

Dani Allen: 15:02

Yeah, they called her Ruthie. I'm I I always I called her grandma, but like everyone would refer to her as Ruthie.

Crista Cowan: 15:09

Okay. Talk to us a little bit about the great migration, because I think that's a thing that a lot of white audiences aren't familiar with, but that is very much a part of the black Americans story. So explain that to us a little bit.

Dani Allen: 15:19

No, during the the 30s and 40s, it was really difficult in the South for people to just m make a living. And um the North provided opportunity, opportunity around the auto industries specifically. Um my grandfather was looking for a moment to apply for a job at, I believe it was Chrysler or what is it, General Motors now? It might have been Ford actually. Um, and had heard of this because a few of his friends from the military were making their way there. And that's how they actually left the South. Uh, Tennessee was was hard for them. There were only few places that they were allowed to work, uh, and and even more so, places that they were allowed to live and with a growing family, it just became hard to feed your children. And so this became an opportunity for them and and they took it. So they went to Tennessee first, and I believe he was in either a coal mine or or some type of a mine initially. And then um on his way to Wisconsin, they uh went to Detroit and he did work in like the auto industry, and then ultimately came to Detroit to work for A.O. Smith Company, which I think they make uh trailers or carriages for cars or automotors for automobiles. Um, and that was his job when he got to Wisconsin. So um had they not done that, I mean, totally different experience, right? Like totally different life. But they they were one of thousands of people that um loaded up whatever they could. A lot of them came with very few, yeah, very few items, uh cherished items from home and things of that nature. It was literally the clothes on your back at some times. Yeah. So I heard those stories as well. Um, staying with friends wherever you could. In some cases, they slept in cars. Um, some people could afford to take a train and actually go, but a lot of it was uh arduous and and difficult getting from point mean point being.

Crista Cowan: 17:26

Yeah, and you think about loading your entire family and all of your belongings into whatever small vehicle you can afford. You had a vehicle, yeah.

Dani Allen: 17:33

Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 17:33

Yeah. In a lot of cases, it was selling off things just to try to get to the net stop. So yeah. When you think about migration patterns and why people move different places, the great migration from the south to the north, we see black families in droves going to Chicago and Detroit and Milwaukee, and and like you said, just for the work and the opportunity to support their families in a place that wasn't as difficult as the South, but still had its own challenges.

Dani Allen: 18:03

Very much so. Milwaukee is a segregated uh city. It is very diverse, but it's you know, it's a German settlement first. And uh they found some of the same, you know, issues where they're where they were only allowed to live in certain parts of the city. Um, the work was there, but they weren't paid equal to, you know, their white counterparts. So but they made do and they were able to ultimately purchase a home. Um, my aunt Nellie, who my mom went to live with for those few months while my grandma recuperated in the hospital, she um she actually wound up being a wealthier woman and uh owned a business. And her home was a home that would had belonged to a white uh beer bearer who was able to actually buy a home in the lockhead that belonged to a beer bear and was unheard of in that time. And my mom remembers the opulence of the home and the many rooms that she had. So there's some really cool stories around that as well.

Crista Cowan: 19:00

That sounds like it. That's amazing. And then you also have to think about the family they left behind. Yes. Right? Your grandmother's mother was still living in Florida. Like, was there any tension in the family about people leaving to get work or were they encouraging them on the way? And then how did they maintain those relationships?

Dani Allen: 19:18

Um, I know there was a lot of letter writing until there was um until they actually had a phone installed. Uh, and that came, I think, as late like late 60s. They did they didn't have a telephone until like the late 60s, my mom told me. Um and there were times when my grandmother's mother would come up on the train from Florida and stay with her for a while and and get to know kids and and spend that time. And sometimes um my grandma would go back to Florida on the train. I remember my mother paying for a trip for for her on a sleeper car, an Amtrak sleeper car, to go and see her mother, who was at the time wasn't feeling well, and that she didn't my grandma. mother didn't have two nickels to run together. So a lot of her living expenses were paid by her children. But know our feelings, I think it was understood what needed to be done. Yeah. And my great grandmother and her siblings that all lived in Florida, uh, lived in a a lot a lot of people in their neighborhood or this part of town, they looked in Chipley, Florida. Um looked like them. Uh they looked biracial and they were comfortable. They were safe. And I think that was okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 20:29

So she had a community. She did. That's good. Because yeah, you think about like your grandmother being taken care of by her children, but your great grandmother, like if her family was leaving and she was only seeing them occasionally, hopefully she did have a strong community.

Dani Allen: 20:43

She had a strong community.

Crista Cowan: 20:45

So you had this connection to your grandmother, you had this connection to your great grandmother, but your daughter was she born before after your grandmother died?

Dani Allen: 20:53

She was born after I was actually pregnant with my second child, my son, um, when she died six months pregnant. But um uh no connection to my uh grandmother or great grandmother. She's seen obviously photos and heard some stories um and I try to keep their memory alive by sharing those things like what the house looked like in Chipley. Uh I remembered very fondly what the smell of the house was like it smelled like um geranium oil like essential oils that's what the house smelled like um I remember things that she would do to beautify the home her she was a gardener and I share that with my daughter who loves plants and it's like she always asked did I did I get that in uh honestly I'm like yeah that might have been handed down to you. I don't know but I try to keep the memory alive and I try to keep the pictures um I try to find more pictures and that's proving really difficult for me right now um of both my grandmother as a young woman and my great grandmother I have like three or four pictures and that's it. So I'm always on the hunt to see if anyone's uploaded any new content that maybe I could get tagged to or or find but it's proven that we're hard.

Crista Cowan: 22:10

Has your daughter connected with those family stories the way like you knew those people so those family stories were part of your story too but for her they're not and so as you kind of serve as that bridge like do you think she's internalized any of that yet? Not not so much.

Dani Allen: 22:24

No I think my son though uh he's more of the he's the person that family's really big to him my second child um he asks a lot of questions whereas my daughter's just like oh that's interesting oh maybe that maybe I got gardening from a great grandparent my son is like what does she look like you know uh did she go to school did she have a you know they go to college was that a thing you know he he's someone that leans into that so I I am able to share that with my children and and I um they also are able to ask my mom questions what she remembers but also her siblings the ones that are are still still living so we have conversation um we have moments of inflection and and and time to actually digest what we're hearing um my son is the one that uh will also lean into researching so he'll go on to ancestry.com and actually mom I found something new uh he loves newspapers.com he's just like there's so much stuff out here and he's like we never knew this existed so I'm finding things through their eyes my daughter though on I she's a little different she's sort of like it's cool if we talk about it um she also is um charting her own path and um family our immediate family is really important to her um her connection to my mom is really strong they text like daily um they have like a thread I don't know how long it is but it goes on and on and on. So there is a familial connection but past connections she sort of like if she hears the stories it's cool.

Crista Cowan: 24:04

Yeah well that and and everybody does chart their own path for sure. Yeah and different pieces of story and different pieces of family connection resonate with different people differently more chart yeah um you have a middle son and an older son? Yeah I have two boys uh Nicholas Thomas and my daughter's little son okay and what your older son like does he feel connected to the family in the same way?

Dani Allen: 24:26

Yeah he's actually more connected he's eight years older than my daughter and so he get got to spend a lot more time with people and uh before I moved um and so yeah he's very much so connected to especially to my mom's family they're really close my mom helped me raise him at one point in time while I was working and whatnot. So um he's heard a lot of stories but also uh has uh investigated a couple of things on his own as well. So yeah that now that I work here they're all like super sleuth detectives and they're up there trying to find new things but um he has a really tight connection with my mom's family specifically

Crista Cowan: 25:04

I love those yes so you know you had this connection with your grandmother your children have a connection with their grandmother as you think about the possibility of becoming or are you already a grandmother?

Dani Allen: 25:17

I am I am a grandmother two two years ago um yeah Kai is my world right now and uh it is so important to me that because they're in Milwaukee and I'm in California um I FaceTime with her you know three days a week and I just got to spend a week with her um last week in Milwaukee and overnight and just all all the things reading stories and bath time and and and whatnot it is really important for her for me that she knows me but also um that we build this really strong bond because I I had that with both my grandmothers. I when I think about her she's the light of my life and um while my mom is still alive my mom's her great grandmother and my mom my mom's only 71. So uh my father's mother is still alive. She's 90. So Kai has a great great grandmother and is able to spend time with my great great grandmother with her great great grandmother. So that that's pretty cool.

Crista Cowan: 26:23

That's amazing that stuff like that just makes me weep. Like I love that so much because I think so you know I've shared the statistic before but Ancestry did a study that shows that 53% of people can't even name all four of their grandparents. And so the fact that you have such a strong intergenerational connection and that your granddaughter is now getting to experience that I think that's a beautiful thing.

Dani Allen: 26:45

Yeah I I want to hone in on it and I want it to be uh something that stays with her for a very long time. My hope is my my hope is as I have other grandchildren um we bring them into the fold and and there's more stories to tell there's more opportunity to share I'm excited about that.

Crista Cowan: 27:04

So as you think about Wisconsin right and we're doing this state series and you have such a strong connection to that place not just because your family ultimately found a home and a refuge there in some ways but because of all the things you've built and now because you have a grandchild there like what is what does that state mean to you?

Dani Allen: 27:24

Wisconsin is home. I mean it is it's grounding it's when I go back um I'm a child again that's how I feel when I go home and there's never enough time. I want to see everyone all my friends uh that still live there all my many many many many family members there's never enough time so you look for moments like a reunion but um I have one living grandparent and she and I talk every Saturday I think I shared the story with you when we were together in Chicago we've talked every Saturday it's about two hours we zoom actually um and usually she starts out with so what'd you find for me today like on the app or you know and we'll I'll I'll share something if I found something other than that it is like I can ask stories of her she's super sharp very you know still does her New York Times crossword puzzle uh very learned um and we talk about life life experiences her experiences um she grew up in a German settlement in Missouri and to hear her life story her family had money my fa my grandfather's family did not this is my dad's mom um and the fact that the two of them met and married um her family was not happy about that and uh she tells me these stories and I found a newspaper clipping uh on newspapers.com with my grandfather would was leaving Wisconsin to go meet my grandmother or pick her up or something in Missouri and he got a ticket and they took him to the jail I guess that's what they did back for a ticket. Yeah he was speeding and he was trying to get there um and they would put this in the newspaper and I asked her about it and she started cracking up she's like laughing about this but she's like I remember that my uh she said my uncle Johnny and I had to go and get him out of the jail because he was speeding. I'm like was that normal she said I think it was normal for us for you know for people of color but anyway I share these stories um now with my kids because she's alive and she's very much so with it and Ring has a very very strong memory she remember she remembers so much from her childhood um she remembers stories that were passed down to her as well I'm finding more and more connections to actually validate some of the things she also heard growing up as a child um about her grandfather and him defending people and getting into uh uh physical fights with plantation owners in in Kentucky uh in Virginia and uh being owned by his cousin her great her her uh grandfather owned by his cousin um and uh getting into a fight with like a foreman or something on a plantation and his cousin saying to him if you stay I have to make an example out of you so I'm gonna give you this money and you're gonna go you're gonna go and go north and don't come back. And I actually found a story that sort of validated um a brawl that happened and uh the law was involved and his cousin uh sent him on his way so he could live and he went on to own a hundred and some uh acres in Missouri and make a life for his family and they they grew up pretty wealthy. Um I found where he would sell off certain parcels of land uh and purchase like feed a feed store and things of this nature he became a pastor in his in Missouri was known as a a well-known pastor and all all these stories so for me that connection to her lineage is so important and it's so important for me to get those stories from her um as she's starting to ale a little bit more and not as mobile as she used to be but technology has not evaded her she knows how to use Zoom she knows how to research and um she's online all the time and I'm able to have that rich connection with her. And those are the stories I'm gonna pass down on my half. So are you recording any of those Zoom calls? I haven't started recording them and I I don't know why I'm not recording them. I need to um I'm trying I'm jotting them down and then oh yeah look up this when you get a chance or you know forget to spend time with a genealogist ask them these questions granny wants to know X, Y, and Z, you know um but I should record yeah as you think about how how desperate you want photos you have an opportunity to pass video on to your children or grandchildren.

Crista Cowan: 32:06

True that's true.

Dani Allen: 32:07

They'll actually get to see her that's that's true. And I'm uh it's a moment that I can capture and memorialize and yeah I I need to do this. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not today.

Crista Cowan: 32:19

Well I love I love that you have those touch points and those connections I think that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing your grandmothers with us. Hi I'm delighted.

Dani Allen: 32:28

Thank you for asking studio sponsored by Ancestry