Discover the hidden history of a surname and its connection to 19th Century Southern America in this personal reflection on genealogy.
Part 2 in our look at one family’s ancestral journey.
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The Surprising Story Behind My Surname: Revealing 19th Century Roots
When I was a kid, another kid would take my name and use it to tease me. Not my whole name, only the parts they knew. The “M” in MK is the initial for Martin. The “K” is for the second part of my first name, and that is Keith. I can still hear my neighbor from down the street call me “Fartin’ Martin.” It rhymed and associated me with flatulence, so I thought it might stick. That worried me.
I was probably eight or nine years old when I heard that. I didn’t believe my two brothers, who were so much older than me, had any interest in helping me deal with my name problem. Although some part me knew my parents named me after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, I did not think his legacy would save me from my circumstance.
That experience made me wonder what those same kids would do with my last name. It’s not that I thought I would be compared with the totalitarian communist leader Joseph Stalin. We were kids.
Instead, I worried if my tendency to hesitate, to wait, procrastinate or move with all deliberate speed would inspire others to call me “stalling Stallings.”
Well-timed deployment of poetics would serve any kid well. In this case, using a rhyme scheme or repetition is more brilliant than cruel. Sure, my dignity and self-esteem were rungs on his climb up the social ladder but they were reinforced by unfailing literary devices so I can’t be mad. I can be
embarrassed but not mad.
What I did not know then was how my surname was more than a potential target for amusement by other kids. It is a key to a history that could take me back to 19 th Century Southern America, likely shortof anything African. It took the genealogical work of one of my brothers to learn that. It was likely after one of those radicalizing episodes of Finding Your Roots that got me thinking about my surname. It was probably the episode 5 of season 2 featuring Nas. Without giving too much away, Gates asked the hip hop legend if he knew why so many of his ancestors had the same surname, particularly those who had yet to form a union or family.
I was concerned that Gates would reveal some kind of incest story that I had not seen on the show before, leaving me shocked by that revelation. Not so much that incest happened but that this episode would air Nas’s response to that reveal.
The answer should not have surprised me, but it did. Nas’s ancestors had the same surname because they were all owned by a person with that surname. It got me thinking about all of the Stallings I know on Facebook but have no idea about how were related. Nas’s history made me wonder if my ancestors came from a Stallings plantation.
I remember asking my brother Michael, my family’s Skip Gates, if he had any information on our surname. He gave me a summary of his findings that linked a paternal ancestor with a slave owning family to a part of Mississippi from which my father descends. I started feeling that Malikenergy.
Since then, I have discovered some holes in that research, which has me contemplating joining a local genealogy group. Fortunately, there is the St. Louis African American History and Genealogy Society, which meets third Saturdays at the Missouri History Museum. With the exception of the shutdown caused by COVID-19, their organization has met monthly in person from 1 pm to 3 pm since 2008, and it’s free to attend.
Before the pandemic, they offered study groups where members would share resources based on state archival documentation. Long-time member and current organization president Linda Simms mentioned that study groups will resume, which may give me an opportunity explore the history behind my name and allow me to continue the work my brother started.
About the writer:
MK Stallings is a sociologist by training and a poet by experience. He currently is an arts researcher and analyst in St. Louis.
IG: mk_stallings
Threads: mk_stallings
FB: MK Stallings
Blue sky: mkstallings.bsky.social
#surname #familyhistory #genealogy
