Why Legacy Work Matters to Me

I look at the work I'm doing as more than preservation. I believe that it’s extremely personal and apart of spiritual work. Therefore, researching and sharing is my way of staying in conversation with my ancestors and making sure their stories and legacies don’t disappear.

 

Researching records have shown me what happens when stories go untold and I’ve watched entire family lines become lost through time, migration, and racism. In my own family, I’ve unfortunately traced the erasure of my Native American ancestors. I've watching their names change, their identities rewritten in records from “Native” to “Mulatto,” then to “Black.” All of which make families like mine harder to trace, easier to forget. I refuse to let this happen.

​

The gift of ancestry has fueled my desires to share how deeply our stories matter, and if not preserved, how easily they can be taken from us. Legacy work reminds us that we deserve to be remembered with dignity, detail, and context.

​

This journey began with one article about my late grandmother, Mattie Bell Kinney. That single piece became a path that I’m proudly still walking. Along the way, I’ve collected oral histories, preserved photographs, and built archives that center the lives of those who came before me. Not only do these archives hold power and healing, but they help others reconnect with what was never truly lost, only buried.

​​

I am a family researcher, preservationist, archivist, storyteller, daughter, mother, wife, friend, and so much more all thanks to those who come before me.​

​

I thank them and I will honor their stories.