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Exhibition Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress

Thelma Short Doswell. The Blackwells’ Kinfolk, 1795–1959, ca. 1959. Paint and ink on canvas. Photograph by Gavin Ashworth. Local History & Genealogy Section (099.00.00)
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A Towering Family Tree

In 2017, the Library of Congress received gifts of genealogical materials from Stephon Doswell that included a six-by-nine-foot canvas family tree. The Blackwell family genealogy is the result of over twenty-five years of research by Thelma Short Doswell (1919–2012). The documentary record for enslaved people in early America is often obscured or incomplete, but Mrs. Doswell pored over countless state and local records searching for references to her ancestors and making connections between generations. Her history includes more than 3,300 relatives dating back to 1735. The first, Ama, was brought to America on the slave ship Doddington and purchased by James Glenn Blackwell of Yorktown, Virginia. Professional tennis player Arthur Ashe, designated with a silver leaf on the upper right quadrant of the tree, was Mrs. Doswell’s first cousin.