CINCINNATI — Sharon Cross is showing me her trash.
It’s on her ottoman, which she points out because it’s not really trash. It’s three candy wrappers rolled into a ball for her cats to play with. But she says most people don’t understand that.
That's how she feels about genealogy, too. And that's why she volunteers at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. To help people understand more about the world around us — by first understanding more about themselves.
WATCH: Freedom Center volunteer makes a shocking discovery
Cross is now showing me a picture of her grandparents, who died before she was born. The photos are so old she’s afraid to take them out of the gold frame, which sat on her family’s mantel for years.
“This is actually what started the whole thing,” Cross said. “I knew they were my father’s parents, but I didn’t know anything about them.”
And when she started looking, Cross found an entire line of family she never knew existed. Her great-great-grandfather was white, she tells me, and he owned people who were enslaved.
“I didn’t know that somebody would even know that," Cross said.
She made this discovery on the fourth floor of the Freedom Center, where she works in its family research center. It's a library that helps people discover more about their genealogy.
Just like she did.
Inside the library, Rick Schneider flips through comment cards left by visitors from all over the world.
“I really feel like my life was changed,” Schneider said, reading one. "I will be back for more."
Schneider is the genealogy coordinator there, and he tells me people often leave in tears. He recently helped a young man find pictures of his father, even though that person didn’t know who his father was when he walked in.
“That’s our job," Schneider said. "We open up a whole new world to them.”
Ray Busche tells me he's been here about 10 times. This time he's here on his lunch break.
Busche is researching his wife’s family, trying to find out more about a piece of property a relative owned — back in a time when it was uncommon for Black people in America to own anything.
Busche is white, and his wife is Black. He wants to travel to Louisiana to find a document that would tell him more. But before he can do that, he needs to confirm that property record's existence.
“And I can’t get this anywhere but right here," Busche said.
That's why this is a story about America, more than it is about any individual. Because we’re all connected. And at a nearby computer, Cross takes off her glasses to show me how — pointing at the screen in front of her.
“You could see it right there," Cross said. "I'm their descendant."
Want to learn more?
The research library is open by appointment on Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to the Freedom Center is not required to access the library. More information can be found by clicking on this link.
