Slave descendants embrace white plantation owner's kin

WALTERBORO, S.C. (AP) -- A white Ohio school teacher embraced some of her 100 black cousins at a family reunion here last weekend, adding her branch to a family tree descended from her plantation-owning great-great-great-great grandfather.

In March, Deborah Adams publicly embraced her black cousin, Bettye Stevens Coney, on a school stage in Twinsburg, Ohio, near Cleveland. On Sunday, she reached out to 100 of her black cousins at a family reunion.

A century and a half ago, plantation owner Reuben Stephens' son, Daniel, fathered a child with a slave girl named Judy.

Judy's son, Daniel Stephens, later became a free man and from there two branches of the Stephens family tree - one black, one white - diverged, only to be reunited nearly 150 years later through the Internet.

When Daniel Stephens' children held a reunion Sunday at a church about 17 miles from the old plantation, Adams was there, too.

"God doesn't make mistakes," Adams said Sunday. "Men have put up borders of misunderstanding and hatred. Let us be the teachers and share the rainbows within our own family."

Her cousins applauded this new member of their extended family at a biannual gathering.
"There is a spiritual connection," said Stevens Coney, president of the Stephens Family Reunion. "I hope you feel it, too."

About six years ago, Coney joked at a reunion that black family members should research where their white cousins live and show up on their stoops saying, "Hi, I'm your cousin."

Stephens family member Yolanda Mitchell did the research and sent queries to kin she found on the Internet.

Adams, who had researched her lineage back to Reuben Stephens, responded to a posting on a genealogy Web site from Mitchell. She and Stevens Coney spoke by phone for the first time five years ago.

Adams always knew she might have black cousins.

"Every branch of the family had slaves," she said. "You had to be going into the world with blinders on if you didn't consider that."

In Walterboro, she found family who dubbed her "Cousin Deb."

Near the end of a church service here, they presented her a plaque that read: "Deb, We welcome you to our family with open arms."

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