Stephani talks about how her Revolutionary War patriot James Due was not Scottish but instead a black man living with a white woman; and proving that her ancestor Vilmont Schexnayder was born to Norbert, a white man who had a child with a slave, which Norbert’s descendants denied. She discusses growing up in San Jose, California; working as a pediatric home care nurse in Sacramento, CA; opening a group adult residential home with her mother and family; running a Supported Living Coaches, Personal Supports, and Life Skills business; taking family trips with her mother, father, stepmother, and brother together; her interest in genealogy beginning with mother's stories about her third great grandfather Vilmont Schexnayder and a woman of German descent stating the name must mean Schex’s-"n-word"; how Vilmont was born a slave and was a US Colored Troops (USCT) soldier in Patterson, Louisiana; searching for Vilmont’s father; taking a tour of Laura Plantation that led to a chance encounter with guide Jay Schexnaydre who pointed her to Vilmont's father Norbert and later learning that Jay was a cousin through DNA testing; a white descendant of Norbert Schexnayder denying that he is the father of Vilmont; later taking a DNA test that revealed the descendent as her closest match; Vilmont's USCT widow's pension request explaining that she was partnered with Henry Alexander in Lafayette, Louisiana to produce children as a slave but married Vilmont in Patterson, Louisiana when she was freed; assuming her Revolutionary War patriot James Due, of Caroline County, Maryland, was white with a black or Native American partner since she only knew of white descendants of Enoch, James’s son, who were always told that James was Scottish; Enoch’s battle between identifying as mulatto or white, finally living as white and his sister Serena living as mulatto; Enoch's descendants having African DNA; being proud to know that her ancestors were here from the birth from United States; joining the DAR so that James Due could no longer be forgotten; no one knowing that James Due owned property in Maryland and is buried there in Tuckahoe State Park with no grave marker; feelings while having her DAR new member welcome ceremony in a country club which had previously excluded blacks and in 1920 hung July Perry in Ocoee, FL massacres, outside of the gates, because he wanted to vote; embracing the DAR sisterhood. Read Stephani’s biography at www.daughterdialogues.com/daughters

Subscribe to the newsletter at www.daughterdialogues.com

Follow us @DaughterDialogs on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter