Lesson 6.2
Teaching-point outline
- Gaps are normal
- DNA as clue, not sole truth
- Avoiding harm when contacting strangers
Lesson body
Gaps are normal. Slavery-era ruptures, colonial record bias, lost papers, quiet family conflicts, and simple forgetting all create holes. A dignity-first seeker treats gaps as invitations to patience, not as emergencies that justify invention. You may never know every village name. You can still practise language, support community, and honour what is known.
DNA as clue, not sole truth is a hard rule of this course. Genetic estimates can point toward regions and matches; they cannot replace living relationships, cultural knowledge, or consent. Percentages change with databases. Matches may not want contact. Ethnicity labels on commercial charts are marketing approximations, not chieftaincy certificates. Use DNA to open careful conversations—never to bully relatives into your narrative.
Avoiding harm when contacting strangers protects everyone. Message briefly, identify yourself, state your purpose, and give people an easy way to decline. Do not send money to unverified “lineage brokers.” Do not publish someone’s phone number or village location. Do not arrive at a compound with a camera crew because a match shared a surname. If a conversation becomes extractive or unsafe, stop.
Video teaching suggestion: dramatise two contact messages—one demanding, one humble—and discuss which builds Temne unity and which damages it.
Remember Module 1: ancestry seeking is pilgrimage. Pilgrims travel light, tell the truth, and leave places better than they found them.