Haley Paternal Roots Confirmed Scottish Via DNA Test

17 years after the death of Alex Haley, DNA testing has confirmed that he is the descendant of a Scottish overseer depicted in the movie and book Queen that he authored about his paternal genealogy.

The findings, by the website Ancestry.co.uk, are the first scientific confirmation of Alex Haley's own research in which he traced his ancestry back to William Baugh (a variation of Baff) – an overseer of an Alabama slave plantation – who was thought to have fathered a child with a female slave, called Sabrina, or "Viney".

Their son, named Alec, is thought to have been born between 1850 and 1860.

Haley's seminal, Pulitzer Prize winning book, Roots , traced his maternal genealogy. That work has been criticized over time because it was based largerly on oral history which professional genealogists have rebuffed to be not completely confirmable.

Regardless, it's undeniable the affect that both books had on the African Americans as demonstrated by the increased interest of African Americans in tracing one's genealogy. Chronos and kairos has truly met as Haley's claims can no longer be considered baseless as science has confirmed them, at least on one branch.