The Family Tree of Pharrell Williams and Why He Almost Didn’t Exist

Every one of us is an amalgamation not only of all our ancestors, but of their decisions, and a peek into the family tree of Pharrell Williams reveals how a decision made by one of his 4th great-grandfathers in 1832 almost erased him from existence.
More than 180 years ago, Ambrose Hawkins, a free person of color, contemplated moving his family from America to Africa, and even made a roughly 10,000 mile round trip journey there to check things out. If not for a last minute change of heart, Ambrose’s son Joseph would have been raised in Liberia instead of North Carolina and the gene pool that would eventually produce Pharrell Williams couldn’t have crystallized. Pharrell wouldn’t exist and the rest of us would be considerably less Happy. Even so, the paper trail indicates that Pharrell probably has cousins - descended from mutual American ancestors - in Liberia today.
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