I’ve always felt deeply connected to my family through cherished photos and memories. My official research journey didn’t begin until 2011. In these past 14 years, I have made some wonderful discoveries that I will be sharing to celebrate the holiday season.
This is the newspaper article from the Arkansas True Democrat in 1862 that published my 3X great grandfather, Robert Hatchett’s, freedom from being an enslaved man. Today my mind went back to the moment I first found this name in the newspaper.
It was 2015, and I was sitting in the University of Arkansas library, 153 years after his emancipation, reading the words that declared him a free man for the first time. I remember wondering what Robert Hatchett would think of me, a descendant he never knew, discovering his freedom story in a quiet room more than a century later.
I have always felt that my ancestors walk with me as I research, guiding me toward the records and stories to be found. That day in the library, it felt as if Robert Hatchett was right there beside me, leading me to this piece of his life that survived in a newspaper. A simple newspaper article is also a powerful beginning to our family legacy and to me being sixth generation Arkansas, all because of him.
Click HERE to read about our Hatchett family reunion in honor of our ancestor Robert Hatchett
Click HERE to read more about
Journey Through the Generations 
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