The Color of Family

A uniquely blended personal family history and history of the changing definitions of race in America.

A zealous eugenicist ran Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics in the first half of the twentieth century, misusing his position to reclassify people he suspected of hiding their “true” race. But in addition to being blinded by his prejudices, he and his predecessors were operating more by instinct than by science. Their whole dubious enterprise was subject not just to changing concepts of race but outright error, propagated across generations.

This is how Michael O’Malley, a descendant of a Philadelphia Irish American family, came to have “colored” ancestors in Virginia. In The Color of Family, O’Malley teases out the various changes made to citizens’ names and relationships over the years, and how they affected families as they navigated what it meant to be “white,” “colored,” “mixed race,” and more. In the process, he delves into the interplay of genealogy and history, exploring how the documents that establish identity came about, and how private companies like Ancestry.com increasingly supplant state and federal authorities—and not for the better.

Combining the history of O’Malley’s own family with the broader history of racial classification, The Color of Family is an accessible and lively look at the ever-shifting and often poisoned racial dynamics of the United States.

Michael O’Malley is professor of US history at George Mason University. He is the author of multiple books, most recently Face Value and The Beat Cop, published by the University of Chicago Press.