When Your Ancestors Choose You: Finding Binky with Michael A. Willis

When Your Ancestors Choose You- Finding Binky

This episode will explore what it means to carry the memory of your ancestors, the challenges of researching enslaved families, the emotional weight of the records, and the moment when genealogy becomes more than research, when it becomes a calling.

Michael A. Willis is an award-winning author, speaker, consultant, blogger, and instructor with more than twenty-five years of experience as a genealogist. He specializes in Louisiana research, particularly in East Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana, Orleans, and Terrebonne Parishes. In October 2025, Michael received the International Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Book Award for Finding Binkey, a work that documents his search for his fifth great-grandmother through oral history, documentary evidence, and DNA, while also teaching valuable lessons for those researching African American families.

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