BETWEEN TWO RIVERS: FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM: THE FRANKLIN FAMILY STORY

Between Two Rivers: From Bondage to Freedom - The Franklin Family StoryIn 1867, a man named Bartley Franklin was on a Louisiana plantation where he had been enslaved and agreed a labor contract as a free man. He could not write his own name. Someone else wrote it for him. That is the first time Bartley and his wife Sylvia appear in the written record by name. Not as property. By name.What they built from that moment forward is the story this book tells.Between Two Rivers is fifteen years of research by retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major Steven Franklin, a sixth-generation descendant of Bartley and Sylvia Franklin of Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.Inside this book:130+ family surnames traced back to two people who were once listed as property in a Louisiana slave schedule50 family members, 380 combined years of service. At least one Franklin descendant served in amajor U.S. military conflict of the past century, a Franklin family descendant was there22 sets of twins and triplets documented across seven generations, a pattern that began with Bartley and Sylvia's own twin daughters and never stoppedTwo lost family branches reunited through fifteen years of research, phone calls, and a determination to give people back the story they did not know they hadThe Franklin family did not wait for anyone to preserve their story. They named their children after each other, settled on the same roads, and held on generation after generation with nothing but each other and the will to keep going.If your family's history has never been written down, this book is proof that it can be recovered. One courthouse record at a time. One name pulled from silence at a time.If you do not know where you come from, it is difficult to determine where you are.This book is the answer. For the Franklin family, and for every family that recognizes their own story in it. Read more