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Genealogical website Ancestry.com, has released 94 new and updated communities so that African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans can learn more about their roots.

Communities are part of the AncestryDNA test, which lets people from the African diaspora explore their heritage and how their ancestors migrated.

One of the new communities focuses on Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina African Americans. As per Ancestry:

“Members with this community may have ancestors that were enslaved and working on rice plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. When cotton fields came to the area in the late 1700s, many enslaved African Americans were brought to work those fields. Following the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II, many South Carolinians followed rail lines up North to New York and Philadelphia. This group was one of many communities that were part of the Great Migration–which was the movement of millions of African Americans during the 1900s from the South to cities in the North and West.”

Another new AncestryDNA community centers on Louisiana Creoles and African Americans. Interestingly, Ancestry’s research finds that by 1940 more than 18% of African Americans in the Bay Area were from Louisiana.

Also expanded, are Caribbean communities, with historical information for those from Haiti, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and more. Here is an interesting tidbit from Ancestry research, “Afro-Caribbeans who moved to New York sometimes had difficulty adjusting to their new homes but by 1930 about one-third of New York’s black professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, were African Caribbeans.”

The update also has visuals and a timeline showing the migration of people from the African diaspora including a visual depicting the Great Migration—a mass exodus of African Americans fleeing the racism of the South to areas in the Northern and Western United States.

The company says the new data is based on its proprietary Genetic Communities technology. “With just the results of an AncestryDNA test, we can help unlock stories of the people and places that make up our customer’s recent family histories. These new insights, provided using our unique Genetic Communities technology, can reveal the roles and unique impact our customer’s ancestors played in history,” the company stated in a press release.

Ancestry.com faced criticism last year after a black customer discovered that his enslaved ancestors were referred to as “migrants” in his DNA search results.

“When zooming in on our African lineage from nations like Benin and the Ivory Coast, Ancestry.com suggested that our ancestors had arrived in the South during the ‘migration’ of the past few hundred years,” he wrote in a petition against the company.

Andrew M. says he was “shocked and offended” to read Ancestry’s characterization of his family history. “Migration implies choice,” he explained, and “that is most certainly not what happened to my African ancestors who came here in the hull of a ship like chattel only to be sold into slavery when they arrived.”

Ancestry.com issued an apology at the time. “We apologize for the language used on our website to describe the historic movements of people from one place to another,” said Nat Natarajan, Ancestry executive vice president of Product and Technology at the time. “We understand that not all of the movements of people through history—including Africans brought as slaves to the United States—were made voluntarily. We will make changes to ensure the language on our site more accurately describes these events in history.” The company also changed the language it used in reference to enslaved people on its site.

The post Ancestry.com Releases New Data For Those From the African Diaspora to Unearth More About Their Lineage appeared first on Black Enterprise.

Source: Alessandro Biascioli / EyeEm / Getty

In the midst of crazy modern dating, pockets of secure, confident loving relationships bud despite the madness. Secure relationships are marked by both partners being supportive, cooperate and loving towards one another. A secure relationship also reflects on the outside, in the way the partnered folks interact with their family members, friends and loved ones.

Tyler Turk, CEO and Founder of Crafted With Love told Elite Daily that you can spot a secure relationship by observing how a couple interacts with one another.

“There will be open and honest communication along with a strong level of trust and understanding,” Turk explains.

Here are some other signs your relationship is in a good spot:

Less Anxiousness

In the beginning of a partnership we might feel like we are walking on eggshells trying to present our most perfect selves for them to fall in love with. But once your relationship hits a secure place, the anxiousness is replaced by comfort and understanding.

Alone Time Doesn’t Bring Worry

You know those couples who can’t be a part? That may be a sign they aren’t in the most secure place, relationship wise. Partners who have faith in their union can spend time investing in their careers or outside passions without disrupting the flow of their partnership.

“Within a secure relationship, there will be a healthy amount of time together and time spent for yourself or with friends,” Turk said.

Continuing, “In a secure relationship, you focus on creating a strong bond between you both rather than trying to find flaws,” Turk explained.

You Don’t Drop Your Friends

Within a health connection, you won’t feel obligated to drop everyone else in your life in order to keep your relationship mojo flowing. People in secure relationships can invest equally in their friends and their partner.

“Within a secure relationship, there will be a healthy amount of time together and time spent for yourself or with friends,” Turk said.

After facing recent backlash over selling monkey-faced keychains that many saw as a emulating historically racist blackface, Prada is attempting to do public relations damage control by aligning itself with one of Hollywood’s most powerful black women, Ava Duvernay.

In a press release, Prada Group announced that DuVernay “will co-chair the Prada Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council (“the Council”) to elevate voices of color within the company and the fashion industry at-large.”

The company also announced that artist and activist, Theaster Gates, will also serves on the council.

“Prada is committed to cultivating, recruiting, and retaining diverse talent to contribute to all departments of the company,” said Miuccia Prada, CEO and lead creative director at Prada in the press release.

“In addition to amplifying voices of color within the industry, we will help ensure that the fashion world is reflective of the world in which we live, and we are thrilled to be working with long-time collaborators, Ava DuVernay and Theaster Gates, on this important initiative. We look forward to working with the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council to help us grow not only as a company but also as individuals.”

Prada is one of the fashion brands that have come under fire for what critics say are racially-insensitive and sometimes outright racist imagery associated with their fashion collections. Fashion house Gucci ignited a firestorm recently by selling a black balaclava sweater that many say bears the racist emblem of the black Sambo caricature.

And Burberry recently apologized after a model walked the runway wearing a hoodie featuring a noose during its London Fashion Week show.

“My work amplifies the voices that have been absent from broad cultural conversations, and I am happy to partner with Prada to advise on processes that will make the company and industry more reflective of the world today,” said Theaster Gates via the press release.

The post Fashion House Prada Brings in Ava DuVernay to Help with PR Damage Control appeared first on Black Enterprise.

Source: Leon Bennett / Getty

Leave it up to Iyanla Vanzant to provide some auntie wisdom in the time of deep confusion for some of us. Jussie Smollett and his alleged attack—which the Chicago Police Department is claiming he staged, is dominating the news cycle. And with 20-minute updates, it can be hard to sort all of it out and make sense of any of it.

And since Iyanla has made a whole career out of making sense out of confusion, she shared her thoughts on Jussie Smollett, the man and spoke to the fact that we may have more in common with him than we’d like to acknowledge. See what she had to say below.

How do we make sense of Jussie Smollett?

We make sense by saying, ‘Wow, look at us.’ He’s one of us. He did— if he did this, at the core he did what we do every day. He told a lie. That’s what he did. Now, we can make up whatever we want to make up about it. He told a lie, the same way the leader of this country does every day. At the core, if he did this, it means that he has an unheard, unspoken, unacknowledged pain. Because people in pain seek to get attention. If he did this, it speaks to how we aren’t really taught to really live in fame and live before the cameras. If he did this, if he did it, I say we each have to look at ourselves and ask ourselves if he were to come forward and tell the whole, complete truth right now, would we condemn him and persecute him? Would we rather him go through a legal battle and adversarial process? For what?

Would we let him tell the truth now? That’s not about Jussie. That’s about us.

Do you think the world would forgive him?

I would. I already have if he did this. Because I’ve done it. I’ve lied to get my way. In my other life, I’ve done it. People do it every day. People do it in fear, people do it pain, they do it anger. Instead of making this about him because he’s on “Empire,” let’s make it about the fragility of who we are as human beings. We are so fragile.