“We each carry in our DNA unique markers that tell a profound story about where we come from and highlight our connections to present-day Africa.”

—Dr. Gina Paige, AfricanAncestry.com

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YOU'RE INVITED!!

Participate in Our Ancestry Reveal Event: March 2, 2023

6pm - 8pm, Navassa Community Center, Navassa, NC

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Last year, the North Carolina Rice Festival & African Ancestry invited members of the Brunswick County Community and surrounding locales to participate in one of the North Carolina Rice Festival’s premiere programs—one that seeks to trace the ancestry of African American residents of Brunswick County, North Carolina, back to the west coast of Africa and beyond, particularly to the rice-growing regions of that vast continent. During the 1800s, untold numbers of West Africans from the fabled Rice Coast regions of that continent were brought to southeastern North Carolina expressly for their skills in cultivating rice, which was dubbed "Carolina Gold" for the riches it yielded local plantation owners.

 

The March 2, 2023,North Carolina Rice Festival's Ancestry Reveal event will reveal the results of the DNA testing that will provide answers to those participating local residents' questions regarding their own and their families' connections to the people of the Rice Coast, whose descendants are today called the Gullah Geechee.