Radiolab - Family People

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

In 2021, editor Alex Neason's grandfather passed away. On his funeral program, she learned the name of his father for the first time: Wilson Howard. Not Neason. Howard. And when she asked her family why his last name was different from everybody else's, nobody had an answer. In this episode, we tag along as Alex searches for answers through swampy cemeteries, libraries, and archives in the heart of south Louisiana: who was her great grandfather, really? Is she supposed to be a Neason? Where did the name Neason come from, anyways? And is a name something whose weight you have to shed, or is it the only path forward into the future?Special thanks to, Cheryl Neason-Isidore, Karen Neason Dykes, Johari Neason, Keaun Neason, Kevin Neason, Anthony Neason, the late Clarence Neason Sr. and Anthony Neason, Clarence Neason Jr., Olivia Neason, Tori Neason, Orelia Amelia Jackson, Russell Gragg, Victor Yvellez, Asher Griffith, Devan Schwartz, Myrriah Gossett, Sabrina Thomas, Nancy Richard, Katie Neason, Amanda Hayden, Gabriel Lee, Paul Brandenburg, Justin Flynn, Mark Miller, Kenny Bentley, Jason Isaac, Irene Trudel, Bill Hyland, the staff members at the Orleans Parish, East Feliciana Parish, and Plaquemines Parish Clerk of Court offices. Episode Credits:Reported by - Alex Neasonwith help from - Nicka Sewell-SmithProduced by - Annie McEwenwith help from - Andrew ViñalesMusic performed by - Jason Isaac, Paul Brandenburg, Justin Fynn, Mark Miller, and Kenny Bentleywith engineering and mixing help from - Arianne Wack and Irene TrudelFact-checking by - Emily KriegerEpisode Citations:Audio - You can listen to the episode of La Brega (https://zpr.io/p5EcBJyU2dfJ), in English and in Spanish.Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail].   Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Wait, you're listening to radio lab from W and Y. Hello, I am Louisa Miller, though I go by the name Lulu. And I'm Lathif Shira's Abdul Fazal Maser-Bullu. And here, that's my full name. Is that true? That is my full name. It is stately and ringy and wonderful. Yeah, it's my dad's name, his dad's name,

his dad's name, it's basically, it's all the dad's name. Okay, and anyway here at RadyLab, we are talking about this because we kind of are a little obsessed with names. It turns out. Yeah, it just keeps coming up. I mean, in addition to the oh six part series, you did a lot of about sharing a name with the Guantanamo detainee, we have done stories about names that make computers go haywire.

Names that seem to influence a certain life path. Like a study that shows that if your name Dennis you're more likely to become a dentist. But today we have a very different kind of name story because our editor, Alex Niesen, recently got some kind of confusing news about her name. Whoop! You see these waps? Be careful.

And this news sent Alex on a kind of Odyssey. Oh, it's stepping in mud. Ooh, it is squishy. Down to New Orleans where she sloshed and slogged. Right. Through swampy cemeteries. Some of these headphones you can't even make them out because they're just so old and weathered. Sweaty basement archives.

Yeah, nothing. Yeah. Trying to pin down where her name came from. And not only did Alex take that search further than anyone thought possible, she ended up confronting a much deeper question. Is your name just an arbitrary string of letters pinned to you at birth? Or is it the thing that can help you see yourself

and how to move forward in life? Most clearly. Hello, hello. Can you hear me? Why are you so blurry? I don't know, the internet. Okay. And we're gonna start off. I'm just gonna have you introduce yourself

with the person who gave Alex her name. Clarency St. Jr. I'm an army veteran and I'm a retired US Army colonel. And your relationship to me? You're my daughter. My oldest daughter. So my name was this big character in my life as a kid. And one of the things I used to tell you in your sister, hey, that's my name. That's not your name, it's on lease.

The thing you say like basically once a day. Yeah, yeah, all right, so I mean, because it is important, right? As you take it. I grew up in a military family, my dad was in the army. You know, 28 years of my life in the army. We moved out a lot, didn't have like a traditional hometown,

and I think I had a lot of anxieties as a kid about like not having roots. Part of that sucks for like being in the military or everything is your last name. Your last name and your last four, right? So in the military, your name is sort of you. People are addressed by their last name, living on base. Your name goes on the outside of your house on hours. It always said, team Nison. I saw it every day on my dad's uniform when he would get up and go to work. Your identity comes completely absorbed into your last name. I make sure that my name has value to me. And then as you and your sister were growing up, transfer that to you so that

you can understand that, hey, look, take care of this name. This is what I got. This is something that I own as my identity. And I just totally internalized that sense of connection to my name. And, you know, I have a name plate ring. It says, Niesin, I never take this thing off. Certain friends, I'm not known as Alex. I'm just known as Nesan. It's just a deep part of how I think about myself in the world. And then about a year and a half ago, all of that got blown up. In 2021, my grandfather, my dad's dad,

Clarence, Nesan, senior, he passed away. And he lived in New Orleans, which is where my dad and his whole family are from. And this was in New Orleans, which is where my dad and his whole family are from. And this was, you know, peak COVID. So I wasn't able to go to the funeral, but my parents went. And they brought me back a program from the funeral that has like the obituary and everything. It's got my grandpa's name and his birthday. And it lists who his parents were.

And so it says, I'm just gonna read it to you. Our beloved Reverend Dr. Clarence Nieson senior, Senko, Daddy, Papa, Uncle, Rev, Doc, those are nicknames, entered this world as a gift to the late Edna Jackson and Wilson Howard. Howard? Yeah, not Nieson, Howard. Howard. Yeah, not Neson Howard. And I was just like Howard.

Howard, who's Howard? What is a Howard? And also, where did Neson, this name that was such a big part of how I thought about myself, where did that even come from? Flitten me. Hello. Hey, hello. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. So I called up some of my aunts, Karen, Cheryl,

and also my dad, and started asking questions. Did you ever learn anything about who your paternal grandfather was? I mean, so they all knew that Edna Jackson was their dad's mom, and Wilson Howard was their dad's dad. Oh, yes. I mean, we saw him whenever he was in town. And my aunt Cheryl, she had met him, but my aunt Karen and my dad, they didn't really remember him at all. It's a very sparse memory.

I don't know. I don't know. Cause like I say, we didn't spend much time with my father's people. Okay, and did you ever, and when I asked, do you know why we're called Niesun? No, nobody knew. Mm-mm. I have no idea.

Really? Nothing? My aunt Cheryl told me at one point, she actually asked her grandmother's sister the same question. If Wilson Howard is, is my dad's dad, why is not named Howard and not Nissan? And she said that was adult business. There's sort of like kids business and then it's adult business, right?

We never really talked about it. And then I don't think my dad really knew either because every time you talk to him about it, it was like, well, it's a situation. Oh my god, it's a situation. Well, you don't need to know that, but you are a niece. So nobody knew much about Wilson Howard and they had no idea where the name Neson came from and the weird thing was well my dad and his sisters all feel very much like Neson's are proud of the name when it comes to where it actually came from. I haven't known this for in life so...

Second I necessarily changed anything you know. They just didn't seem to care. I just I just never had a desire or an intense interest in it. Really? Why not? I don't know, maybe it was just, like, Nesan, like this is a variation of an Irish name. Like that doesn't make sense in my context. And so I always knew that like for black families, And so I always knew that like for black families, the whole idea of tracing your history through your name,

it just doesn't take that long before you get to the generation where whatever name it is that your people were going by was imposed on them. Mm-hmm. So it's easy to look back and see all that mess and just decide not to step into it. But for me, I was like, this is my name. I write it down on everything. I wear it on my ring. It's how I think about myself. And I do care about where that name came from, about who it came from, about where that name came from, about who it came from, about all of the people who have carried this name,

through time, all the way up to me. So... Like, I'm totally in my closet. Hi! I found a genealogist to help me out. Okay. Her name is Nika Sule Smith, and the first thing she told me... One of the sort of hallmarks of genealogist to help me out. Her name is Nika, Suel Smith, and the first thing she told me. One of the sort of hallmarks of genealogies

that you have to literally like go down a rabbit hole. This is not gonna be easy. Genealogy keeps you in a perpetual state of being out. Particularly when you're focusing on African-American people, people who descended from a formerly enslaved. Because government documents were records of these family histories. Sometimes they're messy, often incomplete,

and a lot of times they were never even made at all. The archive and the historical record has never really truly been kind to us. But I was just like, look, let me tell you what I do know. And this is my grandfather, Clarence, Nieson, senior, October 13th. I know that's the day he was born and I gave her the whole rundown.

So like, what's your great grandfather's name supposed to be Wilson Howard. But that's the reason that the reason comes from to now. Okay, I've never like there's no first name like no the Niesen is basically a ghost. Okay, so and right off the bat, Nika was like look you just got to start by figuring out who were all the people that were around back then. My mother, she was born in the city, the war. Herod, aunts, uncles, and my father was born in St. Bernard, Paris. Get more information, get all the little pieces.

She got pregnant on her honeymoon. I lived with my grandparents. And pretty quickly, the people, the relationships, the names. little pieces. She got pregnant on her honeymoon. I lived with my grandparents. And pretty quickly, the people, the relationships, the names. Everyone knew you by your mother's name, you know, my mother's name was Marjorie. It all starts to get pretty confusing. No, you used to see that they had this lady that sour grandmother. And nobody really knew that much about that side of the family. I don't think the lady really was. Okay.

Try to keep paper and stuff away from your phone so it doesn't pick it up on the mic. Okay. So I went back to Nika and I was like, okay, the family tree, it has some holes. Less of a tree, more of a branch. That's okay. We've got, hey, but she was like, look, let's just start looking for documents. It has some holes. Less of a tree, more of a branch. That's okay. Okay.

We've got, hey, but she was like, look, let's just start looking for documents. This census, birth, marriage, and death certificate. Anything where a father's name could be captured. And so over the next seven months, Nika and I started checking in every week. The week felt really long. We look over documents together. So go, um, go up to the top. Uh-huh. This document spans across two different pages.

And some days, there wasn't that much to report. You ever sound like a little old ladies. That's what happens to old people. All they do is call each other and talk about their ailments. Talk about what the doctor said this was. Talk about the guy. You know, he told me I had to get rid of my buttonion. And then, one day, Nika's looking over this old newspaper clipping,

something about the draft and my grandpa being sent for a medical exam. Okay, so, and she zooms in on this and points to a little tiny J.R. Right next to my grandfather's name. It looks like your grandfather was a junior, but my dad is Clarence Jr. Based on what I'm seeing, it looks like your dad should be the third. That's very strange. So all of a sudden, it looked like there could be not just a person named Neeson around, but a Clarence Neeson. Clarence Neeson, senior senior. Correct. So, you know, we started looking for a guy by that name around 1937, which is when Edna gave birth to my grandfather.

And pretty quick, I have never seen this before. A possible candidate popped up. So for this, these are convict and conduct registers for the state of Texas. A form that was filled in by hand dated 1942. They're noting that this man is 25 years of age, 5, 6, and a half, 139 pounds. They know him as being black. Cross at the time, he's a Baptist who wears a size 9 shoe. Ha another clearance. He's old enough to be your great-grandfather. Out here, Robin folks, allegedly.

For the record, he pled not guilty, but he was convicted and he did do jail time. The plot is making it. It is. Who is this clear as Nese's? But, you know, now we had a guy and he had the right name. He was in the right place at the right time and maybe he could possibly be my actual great grandfather. Or for some other reason,

is just the guy whose name my grandfather got. So I went research him and have him in his own kind of like tree. So you have all his details together. That meant more research, more phone calls. I now had two possible family trees. A whole stinking lairies. And then, Nika finds a key detail in the El Paso Times. This is Thursday, August 27, 1942.

Tucked into another article about this Clarence Nieson's robbery. Says robbery charged New Orleans Negro. Like a specific brand of Negro, the New Orleans Negro. Like a specific brand of Negro, the New Orleans Negro. Like I'm watching a nature documentary. The article mentions that a few years earlier, this Clarence had married in Octavia Jackson in New Orleans in 1938.

So we've got a marriage record, but let's because family, so we go looking for the marriage license. See, this is pulling up a million one things. Okay, see, here we go, Octavia. This is the right person. Ooh, she was 17. Look at him, wrapping the cradle.

How old was he? He was 21. Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh no. Oh no, listen Howard. What, what? On the marriage certificate, listed as one of the witnesses,

is Wilson Howard. Well, okay. Wait a minute. Wait, the other... Grandpa Contender? Yeah. Whoa! He would have been 20 years old at the time.

What? No, it was... What? Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wilson Howard witnesses. Oh no, they were friends? Oh no. Oh my freaking gosh. Okay. Were they were they friends?

We can't know for sure if they were friends or not, but on November 19th 1938 it was a Saturday. These two men stood in the same room in New Orleans. Maybe it was a church Maybe it was at City Hall Probably they were both dressed to the nines and Wilson Howard watched Clarence Nieson get married. And this would have been just a year after my grandfather was born. Like I cannot grandma Edna, like girl.

Ooh, yikes. What is going on? I'm kind of paralyzed because I don't even know. Was it like a, was it like a, was there an end to creeping on the low situation? Oh my goodness. It could be the other way around, right? I don't know.

Okay, so what, like at the, what are you thinking, Alex? Like what's what? So at this point, there's a bunch of stuff going on in my head. I wanted to know more about this Clarence Niesin senior senior guy, who is maybe the reason my name is my name, but I also was like, what's going on with Wilson Howard and Edda Jackson and Clarins Nees and Senior Senior and is there a way for me to figure out who actually is my great-grandfather? You see these wasps? Be careful.

And at that point, I decided we got to go to the place where it all happened. Do you think there are snakes in here? And so a few months later, Nika and I, plus, Whoa, it is warm. Producer, Annie McEwen, found ourselves in Louisiana. Right. Because first of all, there's only so much you can do online. A lot of things have not been digitized,

and we were going to have to go into the archives and dig them up. Snakes? I saw a few of them down there. And second of all, I just had this feeling that I wasn't going to truly understand these three people, that I wouldn't really get it unless I went to the place where they had lived their lives. This looks like a decently old cemetery. First up, we knew that Clarence Sr. was buried in Texas, so we weren't able to visit him.

But we thought it only right while we were in the neighborhood. Oh, Wilson Wilson! Where art thou? To visit the resting place of the other man who might be my great grandpa, Wilson Howard. Where are you Wilson? In a cemetery just southeast of New Orleans. Kind of a squared field, it's next to a baseball diamond. It's pretty crowded. All of the

crypts are above ground and I am just walking kind of aisle by aisle. While we thought this was going to be a quick stop, I'm stepping in mud. It was the first clue we had that things down here were going to be... it is squishy. Way less straightforward than I thought. Because even though this is where his obituary said he was buried. Yeah, in term in it, the Marriott Cemetery, August 10th, 1988. And there's a Frank Santiago. Like that. Williams, Nelson. Next to Liza Santiago, right. Even though we combed through the entire graveyard, we just couldn't find him. Yeah, in fact, there was supposed to be a whole bunch of powers in that graveyard. And we can't find pretty much any of them.

So then we thought, wait, could the obituary be wrong? Do y'all know where the hell we're are? Then we got these guys, we were there mowing the grass. And they tell her that guy is not very here. He's very the different cemetery down the road. And this tip sent us on this frenzy goose chase. He said to go to the red light and turn

right. Oh wait, no, he said there's a fork and you go to the right. I'll go through. I'll go through. Into more and more graveyards. Oh my gosh. We lookin' for some Howard. Talk to that guy right there.

Where we talk to more and more people. Oh, I mean, it got some Howard back there, but we'll see. Yeah, Howard. I got a little right there on that too. I don't know, no Wilson Howard. Okay. Y'all, the mosquitoes are mosquito-ing and encountered more and more. I can feel them biting me.

It's crazy. Local wildlife. I don't feel any. Oh wow. It's a lizard. It's like lime green. Hey friend. Ugh.

Ugh. After an entire day of grave hunting. Okay, so that, that, yeah. Well, that was not really sort of anti-climactic. We never did find this grave. Ugh, yeah, we can all be here. And as a fishing expedition for any sign of Wilson Howard or Clarence Nieson Senior Senior

and any clues at all, Just anything. On which one was my great grandfather or why my grandfather would have been named Nieson continued into the archives and libraries and courthouses of Louisiana. Here we go. We're trying to find two people

who have been extremely elusive for us. Even though we were doing all the right things, what do you want to start with? Casting a white net, looking for anything from property records to wheels. Let's see, are we looking? You're looking for anything you want. It felt almost impossible.

Like we were looking for a couple of teeny tiny needles in a gigantic haystack. Mom always said he'd start doing a family history carry pruning she has. We went through shelf after shelf of these massive, old leather bound books filled with transaction receipts. Needson is the last thing. OK, well we do it by bowels in here.

What is in, what is in, what is in, Needson? Needson. Needson. And a lot of this stuff was organized in this bizarre system from the Civil War era that they're still using that is. That part of 75, you go into the NE section and that. Very hard to follow. A through Z and then A2 through Z2 and so on. And you have to look line by line.

Okay. Yeah, you're open. What are to look line by line. Okay. Yeah. What are you doing? Oh, recording audio. I don't have to approve that with my boss. Okay. What last time were we looking for? But every so often, there were these little clues, little breadcrumbs about these two men and who they were to my grandfather.

Succession of Wilson J. Howard, yes. Like, we eventually found Wilson Howard's succession, for instance. The succession is super important because that tells you who the airs are. I see Geraldine, who is his wife, and then Darleen Howard, and also Phelma Howard, Jones. Hereby recognizes the only lawful heirs. And so she's played him in here by pleasure. On this document, Wilson's two daughters are mentioned, but not my grandfather.

They did not include him. So what does that mean? And we were like, okay, maybe that means, even though we have all these other documents where he is listed as my grandfather's dad, that Howard secretly knew he wasn't. But also, there was just no way to know if his name was left off that page for some other reason, or if it was just a mistake or a mishearing or a clerical error.

And sitting there and that archive. I just thought that there would be some kind of trail through the documents. I was realizing that we've come all the way down here for some hard, simple facts. But honestly, I feel like we're still, we've still wound up back in the speculating about a dead man's feelings. Maybe it was impossible in 2020 something to just swoop in, scan a document, and understand the world, even just a few generations back. You know? Right. Right. But there was one person who had touched that world and moved through it. My dad has a cousin named Aurelia.

Someone who is still alive lives near New Orleans and who I'd heard about for my aunt, Jahari Nisen. She knows all the business. And they would have actually known Edna. Does that person go by like, Rhea or Rhea? Yeah, Rhea. Rhea Jackson. Yeah, I know Rhea.

Rhea could tell you more. Yeah, Rhea. She grew up in a parish and she stayed in a parish. And she's still in a parish, still is deep. That's how she knows a whole lot. If anyone could tell me what was going on between Edna and Wilson and Clarence in your senior, it was her.

And I've been calling her for months, leaving messages on her phone saying, I'm coming to New Orleans, I'd love to see you, never heard back from her until... That's fine. Five. A few days into my trip. I'll find a mutual. I know. Never heard back from her until a few days into my trip. I'll finally meet you, huh? I know.

I finally heard back from her. My name is Orielia Jackson. I am in the Jackson meets. Edna had been re-as-on. She'd actually known her. And so right away, even before we got settled for the interview, actually, I asked her the

big question. Well, who was, who was Clarence's, uh, my grandfather? Who was his father? Was she answers immediately? Which on how? So I'm like, all right, Wilson Howard. But then, at that time, she started saying things about Howard being the real father, but his job took him away to see a lot.

So some other man stepped in to help raise my grandfather. I had to be somebody on the family. So there would be family people, because I'd adopt a lot of kids to say, I was family people. Okay, I guess what I'm trying to understand is why she wouldn't have given him the last name Howard. She probably was in the relationship with somebody,

and he just named the son out there. So it's possible then that Edna might have been like dating someone whose name was Nisan and... So isn't or just so talking to Ria started to realize that we were both speaking English but we weren't really speaking the same language when it came to family. Okay so for example I give you the fall right now and I come and I pick you up and bring you by my house. I didn't put you there because I put you there because I love you. She would use terms like family people. And I think her idea of what a relationship is was more expansive than mine. But you're going to remember what I did when I picked you up. So that's the way it was of

Clarice Nessa. So, but, do you know that there were somebody named niece and who did all those things? Like, do you, like, it had to be. Where else, why would she give him the name? Thank you, Mel. You know, nobody gonna just give you your name just like that. It got to be somebody that's really know you

and care for you. When we take care each other and the family, don't put it that way to you. Cause we family that take care of each other. Yeah, that's all I know is sweetheart. Even though after talking to Rhea, I was still kind of confused. My head hurts. Are you ready?

Yeah, we're ready. It felt like Howard and Clarence Senior Senior, they were who re-e-a-called family people. Howard was a Clarence Senior Senior's wedding, it sounded like maybe they both taken care of my grandfather at different points, and they both clearly had some kind of connection with the woman at the center of this story, Edna. We're at Ellen's Cemetery. And the gate's open. Who's buried at this grassy little courtyard cemetery

surrounded by industrial buildings across the street from some houses? We're here to look for my great grandma, Edna. And I'm hoping I can find her. So much of this, we just didn't have a whole lot to go on. And we're like grasping at straws so much of the time it has felt like. Sincerely hope there's not poison I've been here.

Because that would bring in suck. Oh, here she is. You found? Yep. Is Zedna? Yes, Zedna. Let's see. Edna Jackson January 4th, 1904,

to October 1st, 1991, forever in our hearts. And there's an angel. Here she is. I have a lot of questions that, more and more, I suspect only she can answer. She had a son and gave him a name. Standing at Edna's grave, I felt like it was clear that when Edna gave birth to my grandfather and named him, it wasn't a ploy or a cover-up or a random name lifted out of a baby

book. It had meaning. It said something about the community of people she came from. Like my name came out of this mix of family people, but that still leaves me at a crossroads basically, where it's like, okay, if there's two paths, I can only walk one at a time. So which one is it?

Wait, hold, what'd you got? Wait a minute, wait a minute. And then through the slow but eventual good grace of the state of Louisiana, I got my hands on a very precious document. Okay, drum roll, we've got all the anticipation. My grandfather's birth certificate. We're hoping that this envelope is given us something. If anything is going to tell us who his actual parents are. Okay, here we go. It's going to be

this piece of paper. Okay, so on the 13th of October this year, 1937 at Charity Hospital was born a male child named Clarence Niesin, colored. That's my grandpa. Illegitimate issue of Clarence Niesin and Edna Jackson. I knew it! I knew it! So it says Clarence Niesin. I knew it!

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew what I did when I was doing it! I thought, I just knew it! This is what you can say, baby! So Clarence Nieson, so Clarence Nieson,

senior, senior, was your great-grandfather, and so you really truly are a Nieser. Yeah, I mean, well, so first, this is just a document. It's a piece of paper, like an obituary or a succession, like all the others,

but it just felt like, as soon as I got in this affirmation, another question popped into my head. Who was the Nisan before senior senior and who was the Nisan before that? Actually, who's the first black person to get this European name, who gave it to them, what did it mean to them,

and why did they hang on to it? After the break, Alex catches a break and stumbles on the person who is going to lead her like a straight path through the woods all the way back to the beginning of her name. Lulu, Latif, Radio Lab, Crab, Crump, this is back from break. And then I'm like, oh, this is the best cookie. Yeah. Okay, quick refresher. I've always felt very attached to my last name, Niesin.

And despite the fact that there's sometimes scant documentation about black people living in New Orleans between emancipation and World War II, I had decided to try to figure out where my name actually came from. And after a detour into trying to figure out whether I was biologically related to Wilson Howard or Clarence Nieson, senior senior,

I'd come across my grandfather's birth certificate, which said his father was, in fact, Clarence, senior senior. And it could be wrong, I guess, but it gave me the permission I needed to finally go hard at the name Nieson. I'm ready. Let's do it. Next name, Nesan. I'm ready. Get it. Let's do it. Next step was finding out where this name was from.

So Reverend Clarence, Grandpa. And we thought the simple thing to do is to just follow the family tree as far back as it goes. His father. And then push from there. It's Clarence, Nesan. So we traced a line from me to my dad. To my grandpa.

To his dad. Clarence, Nesan, senior, senior. Yes, let's go. And then, to his dad. It's from Yvonne. Clarence Niesen, senior, senior. Yes, let's go. And then we got his dad. Israel Niesen. And israel Niesen's father is Levi Niesen. My great, great, great grandfather Levi.

And then after Levi, the Niesen trail seems to dry up. Dang it. Which means next, we need to find out as much as we can about who this Levi guy was. Okay over here. Right and so Levi. We learned he was born as best we can tell in the 1840s pre-civil war, which means he could have been enslaved, but as we begin to gather documents on Levi, we start to notice Miss Spellings. Lisa. We find his last name spelled, Lisam also, Nisan also. Lisam. Lisam. Lisam with an M.

They're just all over the place with this name. I really gotta say. So wait, I mean, is there a chance these could all, this could be a different person entirely? Yeah, because Lisam, it feels like so different from your name now. Right. But whenever we came across a Miss Spe as spelling, Nika would always say, number one, spelling doesn't count. We're looking for fanatics.

Because these forms are often filled out by white clerks who may or may not have heard right or even cared to pay attention to how the person in front of them was pronouncing their name. So, what do you do? You collect all these different names and then, we need them to be at the same place at the same time.

Match up other life details, got it. And so now we knew we needed to widen our search to include a whole bunch of different spellings of Levi's last name. Let me see. And where did the, wait. When we did, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? Oh, okay.

And he can get really, like, she's excited, she's pumped. Wait, this is the best news of the freaking way, dude. And I was like, why? Tell me, what is happening? Look at this black man who was in the civil war, and we got like, she found documents that said that Levi

had fought in the civil war. Oh my gosh, okay, this like like this opens up. I'm telling you Oh, you don't even understand. Wait, why is she so excited? Why is this such a big deal? Because while documents specifically for black people in this era of history were quite scarce if there's one thing that the United States does well Is there's one thing that the United States does well? It documents its military obsessively. And so... Oh, this is great! We needed this break!

After six months of exhaustive digging. Oh my gosh, I might actually do a cartwheel. And just basically picking up crumbs. Yes! All of a sudden, there's a ton of information on this cart. We learned that when he was 20 years old, Black hair, black eyes, black complexion, five, seven. He found his way to an enlistment office.

A list of New Orleans November 4th, 1864. He joined the Union Army 11 days later. He was mustard in. Look, bounty paid $100. Which is almost $2,000 today. So... He's ballin'. He is out someplace.

Give his life. We learned he joined as a private in the 92nd United States Colored Troops Infantry. There were random details of things he did in the army. Repairing roads from Baton Rouge to Clinton. We learned he died in 1921 and... Email LeBot, he was one of the early Black people that had a mortuary in New Orleans.

We even learned the name of his mortician. Like, where else are we getting this information about black people? We never, this era, we're never getting it. We find out where he's buried. Veteran Cemetery. Oh my freaking god! We find a picture of his headstone. There it is!

Wow. And finally, we learned two super important facts about Levi. We learned his mom's name, Viny, which pushes us a little further down the Niesen family tree, and we learned the name of the parish where he was born. East Feliziana Parish, which is a little over 100 miles northwest of New Orleans. It's like 8 a.m. the sun is like peaking through the forest that's lining the highway. It's foggy, lots of crows everywhere and a lot of roadkill. Finding the general area where Levi was born is such a big deal because if Levi was enslaved,

he probably was born on his enslavers land. It feels colder here too. And one possible reason that all these black people, including me, are named Neson, is because there were white people named Neson who owned black people. I mean, it's kind of beautiful, but it's also a little ominous. Yeah. So Nika goes into the archive. But it's also a little ominous. Yep. So Nika goes into the archive. Let me just see if I can find any black or white,

Nissan, Nissan, anything close in East Felicia in a parish. And she finds them. Nisums with an M on the end. This was a white family with the last name Nisum, N-E-S-O-M, the same spelling that's in a lot of Levi's documents. And the patriarch was a man named Abraham. He was a veteran. He had served in the War of 1812. And after the war, as part of an act that created West Florida,

the government gave him a plot of land. The sun is up, so it should be starting to warm up. 600 acres just outside of Clinton, Louisiana. But I actually feel the closer that we get to the coordinates that we're going to, the colder it gets, and the darker it gets. He spent 27 years on this land, raising a family, growing his business.

And then in 1857, he died. All right, here we go. And when he died, his entire estate was auctioned off, succession of A and right. There we go. And when he died, his entire estate was auctioned off, succession of A and L. Nesam. And in a small courthouse in Clinton, we found the papers for that auction. Light blue delicate paper found with like a little rope.

The auctioneer had kept this incredibly detailed diary. Being known to remember that on this 25th day of June, in the year of our Lord, 1,857 at the hour of 11 o'clock a.m. at the last place of residents of said deceased Abraham decent where he carefully wrote down this is where you get the bedsteads and tables and say every single piece of property that was being auctioned looking glass. X's wagon. farm stuff. Barm stuff.

Quilts. Curtain. All the stuff that you have in a house. Closing. And also documented in this auctioneer's diary. Each one of these is a different person. We're 33 enslaved people. Negro woman, Amy age, 60 years old.

Margaret, Dick, Hillary, Spencer, Sam, and this is how we learned that the Nesums were slave owners. Hannah and her four children, Sophia, Negro Girl Mary, Negro Boy Alfred, Negro Boy Lewis, age seven. And this whole time we're reading, we're also scanning to see if we can find the names Viny and Levi. So, it's 21 and Negro 4. Because if we can, then we'll know that this

is where my name comes from. This. Yeah, some Viny. Okay. And we do find a woman named Viny. Nelson Nisa being the last and highest bidder. Bought by one of Abraham's sons. The Sedneger woman Viny aged 59 years,

and her child girl, Sophia, aged 11 years. But this Viny was being sold with a daughter named Sophia. By the sum and price of $1,720. There's no sign of Levi. So we were like, wait. Oh. It's possible that this is not the right Vinnie and these are not the right Nisems.

I'm fast approaching Delirium. Alex is almost nearing her end. She's getting to wear his. I'm gonna close it for third. No, I'm not. The archive was closing soon and we'd gone through the entire auction without finding Levi. But we had about 30 minutes. So we was closing soon, and we'd gone through the entire auction without finding Levi.

But we had about 30 minutes, so we pulled these giant, old leather-bound books off the shelves that were filled with hundreds of handwritten transaction records, and just sort of manically flipped through, scanning the pages for the nameies. We're of hereby, a foreman-chant, like what? Which was a wild and nauseating experience,

because while a lot of these transactions were about land, once spotted horse, or animals, or farm equipment, doff, ba, who I loved doff. Amongst all this stuff, we would periodically stumble upon 153 enslaved people. These giant lists of people.

Little William, 11, 11 years old. Humphrey, Peggy. There's a two-year-old. There's an Alzy and an Ibi who were two. Age nine, age eight, age five, age 11. Yeah, these are all kids up here. And even though we were short on time, it felt like we couldn't not read these people's names.

Yeah, and the list continues on the next page. Because we knew that for some of these cases, this was probably one of the only official records that these people had ever existed. William, five, Anthony, eight, little P, eight, Henry, 11, Cornelius, three, looks like Hamilton, three. And then the next page would be

Corn and fodder, Back to farm stuff. Seven head of horses and mules land. After scanning as fast as we could, through as many of these pages as we could, and just as they're about to kick us out of the archives. 1851, October 10th, 1851. We find a transaction dated six years earlier than the auction when Viny was sold.

Abraham, Nesum, andum and William Franklin Nesum. Abraham, the patriarch, is selling to his youngest son. Six certain Negroes of the names. Six enslaved people. Harriet valued at $650. A woman named Harriet and her four kids. Tilda, a Negro girl aged about six, valued at $250. And tacked onto the end of this group. It's about four years.

We find this small, barely legible, so tiny we almost missed it. Very, very precious name. Levi. Levi. A Negro boy raised by hand and sickly about seven years to $2.50, which said, okay, wait a minute. We learned here that Levi had probably had a wet nurse. That's what raised by hand means, rather than being breastfed by his own mother, who probably had to work. We learned that he had been owned by Abraham, and we learned

that this is why he wasn't in the auction papers six years later with his mom and his sister. A necro boy raised by hand. Because when he was a sick little boy, he was sold away from her. Finding Levi here was like finding the last link in the niece and chain. Interesting to have that ring right next to the sale here. Yeah. Yeah. This is where my name comes from. From Abraham Nesum, from this family. Yeah.

Growing up, one of the big reasons why my last name was so important to me was because even though we had moved around so much, I felt like the name Niesin anchored me to a real place. Somewhere where my family was from, where I was from. It was from like a gravel road. And the place had always been New Orleans. But now that I learned where this name had really come from and where we had really come from, down to the actual coordinates that we found in Abraham's government land grant. I had to go there. We should be pulling up. And after

driving about two hours north west of New Orleans, It's just a big open field to the right. We arrive at this meadow, sort of on the edge of the forest, and park in front of the short bit of fence and this massive real estate sign. I can't be in Becky. There's two Becky's. Look, Becky, I'll call you. We're two smiling white ladies.

Both named Becky. We're selling this meadow in plots of land. And it's going to be a housing development eventually. Oh wow, I know. But for now, if you have the ditch, step around the fence and kind of climb through the weeds, the field just opens up in front of you. It was filled with tall grasses, wildflowers. You could imagine cows or sheep grazing peacefully on it under this big blue sky.

Yeah, I mean, it was beautiful. This was the land where Levi was born, and it was here that as a little boy he was sick and was sold away from his mother and now here I was his great great great granddaughter and what I wanted to do was think of something important to say something worthy of these people but instead I just wandered around feeling extremely overwhelmed. I don't know what to say.

And not able to articulate why. I was in orange butterfly just passed. I just landed near me. I just feel uneasy here. And the longer I was there, the more and more aware I became of the ring on my finger. I'm walking around with this name,

on my hand, on every paper I sign, on every credit card I have, and the name part of it represents a horror, and this is where it starts. Like, especially being on that land, the name, it does start to feel gross. Should we have expectations of feeling whole when we go back to these forced work spaces? Were you seeking wholeness by going to Abraham's Langerant Spot Plantation? Or was it just to see what happened?

I don't think I've thought about wholeness because I haven't... I feel very overwhelmed and like I can't, like it's hard to process everything this whole week right away. I'm just trying to think like how do I feel? A lot of the times the answer is I don't and I feel a lot of pressure to have a feeling you know but a lot of the time the answer is just like it's just soup in my head my brain feels like it's reaching its CPU capacity. All of the fans are spinning. It's getting hot.

It's hot. You can't put it on your lap anymore. It's burning. It's burning. How do you move on from this land and from Abraham? How do you keep being a niece and after you know where the name came from? When Levi left this land, when Vinnie left this land, what did they do?

Well, for Levi, after he sold as a seven-year-old sickly boy, the next time we find evidence on paper that he ever existed is when he pops up in New Orleans as a 20-year-old runaway in listing in the Union Army. And as for Viny, four years after she was sold with her daughter Sophia to Abraham's son, the Civil War begins. There's no trace of Sophia, but as we move forward in time from there on the 1870 and 1880 censuses, you can see a couple of vines living in East Felicia and Appearish. There's a Viny Rogers, there's a Viny Doherty, and there's also a Melvina Banks, who sometimes

goes by Viny. And Nika thinks that any one of these women, maybe even more than one of them, could be our Vy. These people are walking into their lives, choosing how they want to be referred to. So, viney could have used one last name for a while and then just changed your mind. Yeah. Anyway, maybe the bigger clue

that one of these is our viney. Going through all of the enslaved people, one by one. Is that that list of people who were sold in the same day she was? Some of those people are in the same community as these vinyis that I found. Offer for sale, Negro woman, Amy age 60 years old. Like, one of these vinyis has a neighbor named Amy

who's the right age to be the same one from the auction. And I'm completely positive that it's her because her name is listed as Amy Nisa. There's also a Susan and a Louisa and a Milly living nearby and all three of these people were sold in the same auction that Viny was. It's still the same community of people. And it's in this community that Viny made a home and grew old. And actually for a long time we can find almost nothing about her until in 1890,

Melvina or Viny Banks submits a pension application for Levi Nism. Okay, so this is the thing that I want to show you. Okay. So if you just click this link, it's an image. Okay, I see that. Looks like an index card kind of. Yeah. This is from a collection of military documents that we found online. Viny hasn't seen her son Levi since he was a little boy, but 25 years after the end of the Civil War, as a very old, very poor woman, she must have somehow heard that Levi

had served as a soldier in the Union Army and thought, if he died in the war, then let's apply for his pension. And the kind of small but incredible thing here is that since she's been free, there's been no documentation that Vinnie's ever used the name Nesem. But here in this form, it says name of dependent mother, Nisam Vinnie. She uses this old name, the name of her in Slaver. Why would she do that? Oh, that's a great question. So one of the things that we see with enslaved people

is the name that their in Slaver's had is often an identifier for their relatives that were sold away from them or separated from them to find them. This is historian Diner Raimi Barry and I called her up because this is the kind of question she thinks about every single day. People ask, well why did people keep their quote-unquote slave name? You know you hear that in contemporary conversations. But often enslaved people until they could reconnect with their biological family or the family that had become a biological family for them.

Sometimes they chose to keep that name. Or in Viny's case, use the name as a marker in space and sometimes the only way they could trace after being sold or separated, you know, cross county lines, across state lines, was a name. One name. So Viny puts down this name. The last name she ever knew her son to have. And she files this application and she waits for a reply from the government.

But... There wasn't a certificate granted. Her application was declined because it had already been granted to someone else. Hm. To Levi. Because he wasn't a certificate granted. Her application was declined because it had already been granted to someone else to Levi because he wasn't dead. Whoa. Whoa. And here's what we could find out about him. He's kept the name Nesum.

He's now a man in his 40s living in a cabin on a plantation just outside New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish where he rents an acre of land and plant vegetables. He's got some health problems, chronic rheumatism, complications from a really bad bout of smallpox, and about two or three days a week when he can, he works for an Italian family on their vegetable farm. We also know that living in the cabin with him was his wife, a woman named Celia Hall. We know that they ended up ultimately having six kids named Levi, Mamie, Elizabeth, my great-grandfather Israel, Harry, and John, all Nesems. And we can't

know because, of course, there are no documents on this, but it's possible, and I hope, that because Levi kept the name Nesem and Viny used the name Nisam, that they were able to find each other. Wow, wow. I hope they traveled a hundred and some miles that separated them. I hope that Viny got to visit Levi's cabin. Maybe they went outside in the late summer sun and picked vegetables out of his garden,

tomatoes or cucumbers or zucchini, and made dinner together. And most of all, I hope that at the age of 97, Viny finally got to meet her grandkids. It's an anchor. Like the name has anchored your family. Even if there's been some detours along the way It still connects you to family again Dine every me Barry and the quest for family genealogy as you

Has have even experienced yourself That's exactly what enslaved people were doing live during slavery and in the immediate aftermath and trying to connect with family You know your name has been important to multiple generations of your relatives. Whoa, where are we? One last stop. One last cemetery. This one last cemetery. This one for veterans.

The grass is green and cut and trim. I don't fear mud on my shoes. No love here. I've come to say goodbye to Levi. 12, 7, 9, 6, 7, 12, 7, 9, 7. Levi, Lisa. Just a very simple headstone, very clean. USCT, United States colored troops.

Here he is, he's right underneath a big tree. Even though he'd been lying here all along to find him, I had to wait the horror of one of the worst things that has ever happened in our history. And I keep thinking about, to yesterday, held a piece of paper that documented his sale as a seven-year-old boy referred to him as sickly, and then today to make it here. Yesterday, enslaved and today free. And through that whole journey, he held on to our name,

carrying it from enslavement to freedom and onwards. And I keep thinking about the moment that I asked my dad why he didn't seem as hung up on the question of are we supposed to be niecens? And if we are, where did it come from? And if we're not, then who are we supposed to be? Then whose name are we supposed to be carrying with us forever? Into the future. And my dad's attitude about it was, hey, this name.

This is what I got. Here's what it is now. And I'm going to make sure that I honor, develop, and move the ball with it. Maybe similar to dad, leave I thought. You know, I'm right here. Here's my starting point. I'm moving forward.

Looking back, I found a lot of people, my people, holding onto this name like a bright line through history. Each of us for a different reason as it shifted and changed, connecting us all together. Proof that we were here, that we still are here, all of us, looking forwards. You still wearing that ring? Definitely. Never taking this thing off. This episode was reported by Alex Niesen with editorial and research support from the patient, yet excitable, Nika Suol Smith. It was produced by Annie McEwan.

And Andrew Vinyalus with Dialog Mix from Arianne Wack. Most of the music we used in the episode came from an amazing group of musicians we gathered here in the WNYC Studios, Paul Brandenburg on trumpet, Justin Flynn on sax, Mark Miller on trombone, Kenny Bentley on Natuba and Jason Isaacs on the drums, all recorded by Irene Trudeau. Special thanks, Alex. You want to take those family thanks? Yeah, family thanks.

None of the story could have been possible without help from my aunts. Cheryl Nieson, Isidore, Karen Nieson, Dykes, Jahari Nieson, Keon Nieson, my uncles Kevin Nieson, and Anthony Nieson, who actually recently passed away. My mom, Olivia Nieson, my grandfather, the late Clarence Nieson senior, or so we thought, and of course my dad, the person who started this all, Clarence Niesen Jr. or so we thought. And I also want to thank, I guess she's my cousin, Aurelia Amelia Jackson, also known as Rhea. Thanks also to Russell Greg, victory vellas, Asher Griffith, Sabrina Thomas, Nancy Rechard,

Katie Niesen, Amanda Hayden, Gabriel Lee, and Devon Chfort. April Lee and Devon Chfort. And before we let you go, we wanted to tell you about a show that exists in the same orbit or realm of the story you just heard. It's from our colleagues at WNYC Studios over at the show La Brega. A show about the Puerto Rican experience. They've just released a whole second season. Each episode is about a different song from the island. I loved one that's about this unlikely salsa hit about a father rejecting his own kid. El Gran Verón.

That episode ends up becoming this really tear-jerkery story about a father and daughter, but the story that feels like it is truly in conversation with the one you just heard is called the Moon's Distance. And while in our story you heard Alex clawing into the past to discover that distance can create a closeness that we usually assume can't be had over space and time. This episode claws its way into the future to imagine a kind of connection between a cast-away of sorts and their homeland. If that sounds a little confusing,

let me just play a brief excerpt from the episode, the tippy top where host Alana Casanova Burgess sets up the mischievous thing that they decided to do. There's a poem, Boricuan La Luna, that became a song. It was written by Juan Antonio Coraher from Sialis, like my mother, and it was put to music and song for the first time by Roy Brown.

It's a song about not being in Puerto Rico, as so many Puerto Rican anthems are. But the message isn't only about yearning, it's about defiance, about holding on to your Puerto Rican-ness wherever you are. It's the ultimate diaspora song, and it gets me every time. The narrator is born in New York of parents who left the island and who dreamed of one day returning, and it's a dream he shares as well. There's a line. He lives with the hope that one day he can reclaim what he has lost. and sueño, a Puerto Rico of dreams. And then the most famous lines, the last two.

I would be Puerto Rican, even if I were born on the moon. That line, it says so much about what it means to be from this place, and to hold on to that no matter what. Nobody can take it away from us. It's such a profound and relatable feeling. We wanted to push it as far as it could go. And so, for this episode, we asked the renowned Puerto Rican writer Sergio Gutierrez Negron to imagine a new universe for Bori Guanlaluña. The story he

created is as rich and surprising as the song and poem at its heart and I'm so excited to share it with you. And so this is the moon's distance. Hi Calvin, this is Nanette. It is such a great episode. I love that they thought to do this and that they did it and executed it so well. So go check out La Brega, the Moon's Distance or any of all the other episodes they have there.

Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time. Catch you soon. Hi, I'm Tori Nisen, and I'm calling from Augusta May. Radio lab was created by Chad Abum Red and is edited by Sworn Wheeler, Gulu Miller and Lottifnosser Err Co-hosts. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachel Cusick, Aketty Foster

Kees, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanan Samba Dun, Matt Kilti, Annie McEwan, Alex Nason, Sara Curry, Anna Ruskwek Paz, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster, with help from Andrew Vinyalis. Our fact checkers, our Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, my name is Teresa. I'm coding from Coachester in Essex, UK. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betsy Moore

Foundation, Science Sandbox, the same on Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundation of Support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.