CeCe and I started with a story that I've told many times before.

It begins at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Cumberland, Maryland.

My grandfather, Edward Gates, was buried here on July 2nd, 1960, when I was nine years old.

Following the funeral, my father showed my brother and me a photograph of Edward's grandmother, a woman named Jane Gates.

Jane is my great-great-grandmother, and seeing that photograph would change my life.

He showed us this photograph and he said, "This is the oldest Gates on record."

Her name was Jane Gates, she was a midwife, and she was a slave.

And you hadn't heard about her before this?

Never, had not heard about her before.

"This is the oldest Gates on record," this is exactly what he said.

"I never want you to forget her name, and I never want you to forget her face."

And we looked at it, and this is like, looking at a Martian.

She was so strange.

She was dressed in her midwifery outfit.

And the next day was July 3rd, 1960.

And that night, I interviewed my mother and father, about what only years later I learned is called your family tree or your genealogy.

And that was it, I was in it hook, line, and sinker.

And I never lost the fascination with my own family tree, never.

Perhaps ironically, the woman who sparked this fascination also harbored my family's biggest secret.

Growing up, I was told that Jane had five children, and that they all had the same father, but that Jane never told anyone his name.

My family spent years trying to identify this man, speculating wildly, before finally settling on one likely candidate, a wealthy white landowner named Samuel Dunlap Brady.

Try as we might, however, none of us could find records to confirm this story.

And CeCe proved it wrong.

She built a genetic network using DNA from my oldest relatives, and discovered that Jane's youngest child, my great-grandfather Edward, was fathered by a man named Charles Wesley Kelley, a white farmer who would be killed by lightning when he was roughly 35 years old.

I had to confess, this revelation did not exactly excite me.

I'd pictured my long-lost ancestor quite differently.

"Death By Lightning.

During the storm on Friday morning last, Charles W. Kelley was instantly killed by lightning.

He was in the act of closing a window at the time, and held in his hand a piece of iron or steel which had been used to hold the sash up.

The lightning struck him on the neck and passed out the toe of his boot."

This is not, this is the, you sure this is my ancestor?

This guy's stupid.

I'm positive.

He's not the brightest star in the firmament, you know what I mean?

Wow.

You know, I'm thinking this guy is gonna be, you know, descended from one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or something, you know?

He was a general in the American Revolution, something, but here's this guy who just gets killed by lightning.

I mean, I'm sorry for my great-great- And now I'm wrapping, you know, even as we're talking, I'm embracing Charles W. Kelley.

I'm so glad.

And I'm sorry he was killed by lightning, but it's not what I expected.