What could the Reverend Al Sharpton possibly have in common with late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond? How about intersecting branches on their family trees.

"And that seemingly far-flung find," says Ancestry.com Chief Family Historian Megan Smolenyak, "was one any family historian could have found."

In conjunction with Black History Month, Ancestry.com released the largest collection of African-American family history records available online. After reviewing the collection with Daily News reporter Austin Fenner, he offered to approach Rev. Sharpton, whom he has covered for years, to see if he would be interested in discovering more about his family history. The Reverend agreed to participate.

"It all started as sort of a challenge, a what-can-you-find-in-24-to-48-hours thing," says Smolenyak. The goal? To go as far back in the family history of Sharpton as possible. That was it.

Smolenyak used the information she had: a few names, a family location of Florida, and decades of her personal experience searching family histories. Focusing first on the databases at Ancestry.com—including the new African American Historical Records Collection—Smolenyak quickly got back to Coleman Sharpton Sr. That's when something clicked.

"A few days earlier, I'd had this conversation with [fellow genealogist] Tony Burroughs who happened to mention his own family line from Edgefield County, South Carolina, and that Strom Thurmond was from there," says Smolenyak. No big deal, just shop talk—the conversation had absolutely nothing to do with Sharpton.

In her own research, Smolenyak quickly discovered that Coleman was a former slave. She ordered the property records. "It was a unique indenture," she says. Coleman and three other slaves were sent from South Carolina to Florida to work off the debt of a son's estate. "When I saw that, I became interested in those grandkids," says Smolenyak—she wanted to understand more about why a grandfather was sending his slaves to bail out a deceased son. "And when I started to look and found that the mother of those grandkids was Julia Thurmond, Tony's remark registered in my brain."

Her first reaction? "No way," she thought. "But I knew I had to try it." Smolenyak searched backward from Strom Thurmond and Julia Thurmond until she found a connection—Juila's grandfather and Strom's great-great-grandfather were one and the same.

To guide her through her research, Smolenyak hit state archives and county courthouses and relied on Internet sites including Ancestry.com and RootsWeb.com to sort through long-distance records from her own home. To get hard-copies of documents quickly, Smolenyak enlisted local researchers.

"When the Daily News first reached out to me for this story, I was very excited at the prospect of discovering my family roots - but I never expected this," said the Rev. Sharpton, one of America's foremost and outspoken leaders for civil rights. "When Ancestry.com walked me through my family history, it was chilling to see proof that I am only three generations from slavery – it's no longer speculation."

It doesn't take a professional to dig up the finds that Smolenyak made. "Anyone could have done what I did," she says—even making the leap from Sharpton to Thurmond just took a little good luck. "It's smart to do a little homework. And remember, context matters. If Tony hadn't made that comment about Strom Thurmond, I may have never thought to connect the dots."

For the family history researcher looking for his or her own a-ha moment, Smolenyak suggests listening to family lines. "We did other [Sharpton] trees, but I was captivated by Coleman—this was the line that called me the loudest," she says. And, for family histories that encompass slavery, her advice is to never give up. "There's a myth that African American ancestry is hard to research. We've all heard about the wall of 1870, but some people take that to mean there are no records for African Americans period. True, if your ancestor was enslaved, it's double work before 1870—you have to check property records since slaves were considered property. But it can be done."

Smolenyak likes to remind family historians that not every black American was enslaved. "Between 1860 and 1870, about 10 percent of African Americans were free." While that might not sound like a lot today, working backwards, says Smolenyak, "there's a decent chance that one or two of your ancestors were free, too." And that trail alone could open up whole new avenues of success.

>> Read More about this Story in the News

Sharpton - Thurmond Connection
Indenture
1880 Census
1840 Census
Sharpton Family Tree