A black and white connection through common ancestry

By LINDSAY LARIN
Bellevue Reporter Staff Writer
Nov 14 2008, 9:00 AM

After years of exchanging e-mails and long-distance phone calls, Norman J. Landerman-Moore and Ann Moore Black met face-to-face for the Western Region African American Conference held at the Bellevue South Stake Center building. The two are distant cousins, related through a common great-great-grandfather, Caleb Moore, of Ten-Mile, Meigs County, Tenn.

Sitting side by side, the newly aquatinted relatives share few similarities at first glance, but their connection runs deep, with common ancestry dating back to the 1600s.

When Landerman-Moore first became curious about his ancestry, he began his research in Meigs County, where President Andrew Jackson had given the Moore family a plantation in 1812. As Landerman-Moore began to unravel the stories of his forbearers, he learned that Caleb had a housekeeper - Harriet, a slave. They had a child, a boy named Governor Gilbert Moore. He was Ann's grandfather. The plantation remains in the Moore family and many descendants of the slaves still live on Hickory Flats which was originally part of the plantation.