Hello, My name is Karen Showell.
First I would like to say thank you to Geni and to all of curators who work so hard on all of these projects. It means the world to us who are trying to find our history. You are truly appreciated.
Recently I found out that Henrietta Lacks Pleasant is my 16th cousin once removed.
I don’t know if you know much about her, but her story is truly amazing. It was so important that Oprah Winfrey made a movie about her life story called “The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks”
See Trailer for movie.
https://youtu.be/FaFJya7FVSM
There is also a wonderful book by the same title by a wonderful author named Rebecca Skloot.
It is because of her that Henrietta’s story came to the light.
You can read more about her story below at the Smithsonian website.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immor...
To make a long story short, her cells were stolen from her body and cloned while she was sick with cancer. Her cells known as (HeLa cells)were very rare. They have been used to help in finding cures for Parkinson’s disease, eradicating polio, the study of leukemia and AIDS.
Her cells were also sent to the moon to do research on the effects of zero gravity in outer space. In other words her cells was what was used to make sure that man could survive on the moon safely. These are just some of the things that her cells were used for.
The reason that this project is so dear to my heart is because about a year and a half ago, I began writing a book on Black History/ Black Inventors and one of the stories included in the book was hers. Last night, I found out that she was a cousin, and I was shocked to say the least.
So I began to add her to my family tree on ancestry.
I need your help because as I was researching her mother and trying to find sources, I noticed that the date of her mother (Eliza Pleasant) birth on Geni, did not match up with a death certificate that I found on ancestry.
I need to know what is the correct date.
I also know noticed that there are no manager options for her project file and I was wondering if it would be possible if I could become one of her managers. Any help would be greatly appreciated in this matter. It’s very sad because a lot of people really don’t know her story. You should really read about it or watch the movie. It really is an amazing story.
Death certificate link
https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/16228579?h=3fd16e
Thank you very much.
Karen Showell
