Alkebu-lan is the original Indigenous name of Africa, the place where 3 quarters of my ancestry is drawn from, but also where humanity was born. Those early humans looked extremely different from us but had empathy and compassion for each other, just like modern-day humans. The oldest Homo-Sapien discovered was over 300,000 years old, while earlier forms of human remains, like “Lucy”, date back to over 3 million years ago. These were the things my family taught me, so I knew who I was and where I came from at a young age, until the summer of 7th-grade year at least. The concept of time and our place in history has always fascinated me; however, genealogy specifically caught my eye in 2019. After watching a show with my mom, I wanted to see how far back I could trace my family’s heritage. I had an insatiable hunger to discover what led to my creation more intimately, what happened to make me specifically. I started with a few pictures, Ancestry DNA, oral history from my grandparents, and a dream, making this the largest project I’ve ever undertaken, as it’s now 5 years later. As I dove deeper into my history, many of my ancestors had fascinating stories. While most led normal lives, many were quite extraordinary in their accomplishments. Many of my great-grandfathers served in World War 2 due to the draft at the time, and one even saw combat in the Pacific Theatre. I was stunned but thrilled when I found this out because World War 2 was something that fascinated me for years, as I had several books about it and completed plenty of projects on it as well. During this hyper fixation, I had unintentionally developed my critical thinking and analytical skills, causing my ability to research, digest information, and relate it to other situations and scenarios I had experienced and possibly will encounter in the future to become exceptional. Due to not always having the resources needed to be able to find information about my family and its lineage, I was forced to become resourceful and think outside the box, translating to my creativity becoming more advanced outside of the fine arts. The more I continued to research and claw and scratch for every piece of information I could find, my curiosity grew like a flame that had been exposed to gas. The scarcity of the information I could find made me want more and more, essentially giving me a high from the fulfillment of finally being able to uncover this piece of history and the names of people essentially forgotten after their deaths. Knowing these people truly existed despite some of their records not even having names, considering those who were enslaved were not considered human and were merely just property, fills me with pride that I can say their names and organize their stories so that my family that comes when I’m gone can continue to remember those that passed before us. After becoming more aware of the trials and tribulations like enslavement, poverty, and immigration that my family was forced to endure, my awareness has transformed me into a completely different person, one who wants to work as hard as I can so that their sacrifices and struggles aren’t for nothing. This has made me determined to be as successful as I humanly can while also helping and uplifting others along the way as I continue on this journey of familial discovery.