My Lifelong Search To Find VictoriaB

My Lifelong Search To Find VictoriaB

There is a lot to be said about a name. It is usually given to a person by their parents at birth. They live with the name until they die, and at that time, it is placed on their tombstone. During that individual’s life, they live with that name. Everything they do, good or bad, is pinned to it.

My username is "vickierj". It is my first name with my middle and last initial. There is nothing interesting about it. It is just something to use as an email address. However, my handle is a whole new story. The first name in it is similar to my own first name, only with a little something extra. The “B” is where the story begins.

As a little girl, my grandpa told me that my last name really was not what our family had gone by for the past hundred or so years. He told me that an ancestor had done something bad and changed our name to hide out from the law. He did not have all of the details, because it was a secret, a secret so bad that the details of the story could not be shared with anyone.

As grandpa told me this story, my eyes grew wide with wonder. In my mind, I questioned what our last name might be. It was no use. I was too young and there was no way of finding any details, only having family member’s first names. I pondered this thought throughout my life, wondering what I could do to find the answer. Then along came the internet.

I attended genealogical training, learning how to look up census records, birth and death records, land ownership and deeds. After learning everything I could about tracing ancestors, I went to work online with my keyboard, pecking away for the answers.

For ten long years I searched, sending emails to contacts who I thought might know about the secret. Day in and day out I searched and waited until finally there was an answer. After finding correlating first names and dates of birth, along with old recovered letters, I discovered the state where my family originated in this country, along with my real last name!

In my discovery I also found where my current last name came from. It was the last name of my great-great-grandmother. This was the name my family took when my uncle shot and killed a slave trader, fleeing from South Carolina to Missouri. It was a good name, because her family had wealth and prominence, allowing them to stay under the radar of the law.

The name I had waited to hear my entire life was "Blackwell". This is what the “B” in my handle stands for. One day, if I ever get my book finished, I hope to use the name "Victoria Blackwell" as my pen name.

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