Genealogy has led one former Freeport resident down a long and winding road. Sixty eight-year-old Joyce Salter-Johnson Boggess - born Joyce Marie Johnson - has tread that path for more than 30 years, intent on unearthing her roots. For Salter-Johnson, American history came alive and the word "family" gained new meaning. A 12-year-old Salter-Johnson began her quest while visiting her birthplace, Good Hope, Miss., in the summer of 1951. She'd come to visit her grandmother, "Mama Anna" Johnson and would return for several more summers. Salter-Johnson documented history with a Brownie camera she purchased with Green Stamps. Good Hope was a great starting place. The self-sustaining African-American community is steeped in Salter-Johnson history. Salter-Johnson's great-grandfather, Filmore Johnson, had founded the town. Salter-Johnson had attended Good Hope's all black school before coming north to Freeport when she was 10 years old. "Chalk was white and so was Dick and Jane and Sally," she recalled. Freeport offered a stark difference. Salter-Johnson was one of five African-American East Side School students. Unearthing genealogical morsels motivated a search for the family's patriarch - Hardy Salter. Hardy was born a slave in North Carolina in 1799, according to the 1870 US Census, Salter-Johnson noted. His wife, Louisa, was born there in 1808. Boggess' search finally lead her down the migration trail of the Salter family. James Salter headed the white, slave-owning family, which found its way through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Hardy and Louisa's three known sons, Frank, Carson, and Alfred, all were born in Alabama and died in Mississippi. Salter-Johnson retraced her ancestors' steps. Save the Family Institute (STFI), a Georgia-based not-for-profit organization coordinated the journey and chronicled the trip on video. Its founder and director, Charles Williams, spelled out one of STFI's purposes. "We try to connect the African-American family with the white family they got their name from," Williams said. In addition to locating slave owners' descendants, it provided genealogical assistance. That assistance included helping verify Hardy Salter's existence. The journey, she hoped, would help answer one question: what slave master would keep a family so intact? Road Trip Loaded into a van, Salter-Johnson and 15 other family members embarked on the trek from Edgefield, S.C.; Sandersville, G.A.; Bartow, G.A.; Evergreen, Ala.; Hickoy, Miss.; Philadelphia, Miss.; and finally to Good Hope, according to Williams. "It was a reunion like no (other) reunion," he said. Participating in uniting white and black Salters was more than satisfying. "My greatest thrill is actually to witness reconciliation take place," Williams said. Slaves, he noted, had no authority to plan their own families. Their owners controlled everything from marriage to procreation to naming children, according to Williams. Those African-American families "were formed by white men," he said. Therefore, they proscribed those families' destinies. For instance, Salter-Johnson learned black Salters were willed from one white Salter to another. She readily conceded the institution of slavery was "horrible." "I don't know how anyone could own people," she said. But Salter-Johnson acknowledged that some slave owners - like the white Salters - were more benevolent than others. The white Salters' success in keeping black Salters intact, she said, was an example of that. Boggess' journey strengthened the unique family ties established centuries ago.