Generations Recording: Genealogical Findings and Memories of the Gaines and Robinson Families

Ruby Robinson Ennis is a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a retired educator. Interest in her family genealogy led her to record information about her paternal ancestors that she learned from her father. Ennis validates much that her father told her through research. Through DNA testing, she traces strands of her paternal and maternal families to Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Her personal memories of her families and her ability to connect incidents in their lives with the black experience in America prove to be lively and enlightening. Photographs from her mother’s scrapbook that date from the late 19th century, the early 20th century and later further enhance her genealogical account.

Ennis also chronicles the history of Scotlandville, Louisiana, a once thriving, predominately black town north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she and her siblings were reared.