Zipporah In Her Own Right

I want to recommend a great article in the most recent National Genealogical Society Quarterly 98 (2010):15-30.  Written by Melinde Lutz Sanborn, it is entitled "Zipporah In Her Own Right: An African in Early Boston."  In early Boston, children of slaves were not born into slavery but were free.  Naturally, that changed soon enough, but for several individuals, including this Zipporah, she was a free person of color living in 17th century Boston.

The article intrigued me for several reasons.  Zipporah's parents were owned by Robert Keayne, an ancestral great-uncle by marriage of mine.  Also, another of my ancestors, Smith Woodward, was on a jury that oversaw a case involving Zipporah.  Lastly, Melinde footnoted me and my discussion of the term Spinster, since Zipporah was called a spinster in Boston land records.

Lastly, I was having a discussion with a reader, who happens to be a graduate student in history on the ongoing disparity genealogy receives from academic historians.  Well, any historian who does a social history of Boston needs to read this article.  If not, that historian will not have done her or his homework.  So, will they find it?  Will this important article get indexed in America, History and Life?  I'll certainly index it in my next edition of New Englanders of the 1600s.  Genealogists are writing really top-notch scholarly articles and historians need to start noticing.

Comments

[Thomas MacEntee]

I fully agree with you - the Zipporah article was captivating and I was happy to see the work done by my favorite instructor of the Boston University Certificate in Genealogical Research program!