Black history enthusiast Rachel Décoste used AncestryDNA to discover her ethnicity estimate and find new details about her family history. The results of the test inspired her to go on an inspiring odyssey to Africa, which she recounts in her new audiobook, “Year of Return: A Black Woman’s African Homecoming.”
Like many descendants of enslaved Africans, Ms. Décoste had been unable to pinpoint her origins.
During the 400-year history that started with a slave voyage over the Middle Passage, enslavers did not regularly keep records of where each African person was taken captive and the few records that did exist were destroyed. This made it challenging for Afro-descendants like Rachel to trace the areas in African that they descended from. Since tests like AncestryDNA have become widely available, new possibilities exist in helping to ease the process for these searches.
Inspired by her DNA results, Ms. Décoste visited five countries in as many months, with each place holding the key to a different part of her lineage.
From Senegal to Ivory Coast to Bénin, she made connections with her people and her history, finding delight in the commonalities between the locals of her ancestral home and herself, while also paying respect to her ancestors.
On the anniversary of the first meeting at Bois Caïman – the birthplace of the Haitian Revolution, Ms. Décoste traveled to Ouidah, Benin, the longest running slave export centre in the world where she is almost certain her ancestors were held before they were forcibly transported to what is now Haiti.
Ms. Décoste said, “With the advent of affordable DNA tests, African-Canadians can now pinpoint their origins and make it a pilgrimage to reconcile with a painful past. By tracing my DNA, I was able to fulfill a journey of self-discovery connecting my identity with my roots.
“Black Canadians often get questions like, ‘Where are you really from?’. After 40 years, you get the message that this isn’t your real home, even if it’s your birthplace. Where can I go so that my skin colour, my curves, my kinky hair, my taste for spices, rhythmic music and colourful clothes aren’t an outlier? After this DNA test and subsequent journey to Africa, I no longer have to wonder where I’m from. I know where I can go to see myself reflected in all walks of life. I know where home is. It’s no longer a question mark.”
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