My journey through time started in the past when a spiritual mind provided information that would change the trajectory of my life. Claire said to me: “We are only bridges over which others may cross.”
We met at a small community center, Casita Maria in the South Bronx. She gave me information that led to my change of direction regarding my advanced educational choices. Claire was a nun who worked in communities in South America. Her compassion for others was genuine. She was brave and lived a life of service to humanity. It was the fall of 1971. I worked two jobs to earn enough money to continue my educational dreams. By day I labored in the Bronx and by night I drove a taxi in Manhattan. I had modest means but lavish dreams.
The information Claire provided took me to Boston where I entered Simmons Graduate School of Social Work. I arrived there in my three-thousand-dollar Subaru which I had paid for in cash after working six days a week for the entire 1971-72 year.
Being new to Boston in 1972 was invigorating. I found an apartment behind Fenway Ballpark on Jersey Street. The Red Sox played there. I never went to a game in the five years I lived in that neighborhood. I was a Met fan at heart. I didn’t like the Yankees either even though I would see into that stadium from the Lexington Avenue subway line platform on a 161st. daily on my way to Cardinal Hayes high school.
One day in my first year at Simmons, one of my teachers decided to spend a class period reading to us a story from a manuscript that a friend of hers had provided. It was the story of a black African slave who spent his life trying to find his way back home from America but never made it. His name was Kunta Kinte. He would be the relative to the noted author Alex Haley. Listening to the story, I thought it to be very interesting. The school day came and went and so too the years after graduation in 1974. In the winter of Jan. 23-30, 1977, a bold new miniseries was launched. The world over knew it as Roots. Its viewership reached 100 million. Later that summer, I went to visit my grandmother, Ellen in Costa Rica and taped the beginning of what would be my first attempt to know our ancestry.
I relocated from the east coast to Spokane and worked at Fairchild, AFB in the Med Group’s Mental Health flight. The year was 1989. Family Advocacy was a part of that flight. It was there that I met my buddy Garth who was a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints. His knowledge of genealogy was extensive. It was then that my desire to seek out the family history took flight. I played him the tape I made when I visited my grandmother in 1977.
I began to visit the northside Church of Latter-Day Saints library twice a week. Garth instructed me step by step in how to search for ancestry information. Patience would be the primary mode required. My pursuit began in 1994 and lasted until 2000. I requested microfiche tapes from the main library in Salt Lake City, Utah. It took two weeks or so for the tapes to be sent. The process was slow then, compared to the present use of computers.
Once the data was sent, I went to the library and viewed them scrolling ever so slowly. The first step was the name of the person, the proper dates in 20-year time frames. I searched through births, baptisms, confirmation records, death, marriage licenses, church or religious records, civic records, cities, towns, districts records. I played Grandmother Ellen’s tape over and over making sure I had not missed any family or geographical clues. She was born in Jamaica and moved to Costa Rica, which is where my father was born. He moved to Panama as an adult. I was born there.
I found her mother, my great grandmother Johanna, who was a Beadle. Her father was Henry Beadle, and they lived in the district of Old London in the parish of Manchester. This information was on a death certificate. The Beadle’s were the main direct family lineage. I was able to trace that back to 1807-08 through William Beadle, the patriarch of the family. He was Henry’s father who married Susan Sleigh. Henry Beadle then married Johanna’s mother Roseann Woods. Johanna Beadle married Henry Pitters. They have Thomas Theophilus Pitters. He marries Ellen True, my grandmother. They have my father Reinold Pitters.
I discovered a Venus Elizabeth Beadle born on September 20, 1778, described as a “free nigra.” She is perhaps the earliest family member since I don’t have her parents’ information. The four families therefore are Beadle, Sleigh, Woods, and Pitters. My father Reinold Pitters married Miriam Darley. They spawned Stephen Pitters.
The key in the search for one’s history is narrowing down the geography where these people lived. The risk is rushing and being drawn astray when the name can be the same but not a direct person in one’s individual tree.