I have been researching my family history for the past ten years. I plan on adding some of my genealogy research to this page. Until then, please email me if you think you might be related to me through my Wallace or Cambridge family. After extensive research (including DNA and Y-DNA—WALLACE), there are still a lot of unanswered questions. I would love to find a direct male descendant of my Cambridge family to do a Y-DNA test.
—Valerie Wallace (vwallaceart@gmail.com)
My Family History
Both of my grandfather’s were born when their father’s were in their late 60’s.
My father’s side (the Wallace’s) have been involved in American politics and the military since before the Revolutionary War, and were active in the fight for abolition and woman’s suffrage. My great grandfather, John Milton Wallace (1844-1928) was General Lew Wallace’s first cousin, and was raised by Lew’s father and step mother, Indiana Governor David Wallace and Zerelda Wallace. John Milton Wallace was a drummer boy and surgeon’s assistant in the Union army for the duration of the Civil War, and was in both Sherman’s March to the Sea and The Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, DC.
John’s father, J.T. Wallace (1806- ?) was most likely a spy for the Union during the Civil War. J.T.’s life has been the focus of much of my research, because he is such a complete mystery. He doesn’t show up in any US census, and probably spent most of his adult life outside the US working for the government in some way. I know that he was a Midshipmen in the US Navy at 16, and was in Kentucky and southern Indiana from 1841-1849, where he got married and fathered four kids. His kids were raised by relatives for most of their childhoods. In 1860, J.T. came back to Indiana from wherever he was, and enlisted with both of his teenage sons in the Union army. He was discharged from the army in 1862, and then he disappeared again. His grave has not been found.
In addition to his older brother Gov. David Wallace, J. T.’s younger brother William Henson Wallace was the Governor of both the Washington Territory and the Idaho Territory during Lincoln’s Presidency. William H. Wallace was a long time friend of Lincoln’s, and was the last person to meet officially with him on the day of his assassination. Lincoln asked William and his wife to accompany him to Ford’s Theater that night, but they had just arrived in DC from the Pacific Northwest and were exhausted.
Hearing stories about the Civil War growing up and researching my family history as an adult has had a deep and lasting impact on my art. My great grandmother, Martha Blanche Early Wallace (1890-1985), was the oldest living Civil War widow to receive a pension. She never remarried after her husband, John Milton Wallace, died in 1928.
One of my first memories was taking this picture. Here I am with my father, my Aunt Kay, and my great grandmother, Martha Wallace. I remember how much age and history were in Martha’s hands. It shocked me. A visual representation of a long life lived. I knew even at the time, it was a beginning seeing an end. Picture taken in 1983.
On my mother’s side, after many years of searching, I found that my great, great, great grandfather (William Hunt Cambridge, born 1713, Maryland) was the son of a white indentured servant (mom) and an enslaved African (dad). I was only able to find this out because there was a miscegeny trial with court records. William Hunt Cambridge’s birth was a crime, and he was sentenced to 31 years of slavery to his mother’s “master” at birth. His mother was sentenced to an additional 7 years of indentured servitude, and I have no idea what happened to his father.
My great grandfather, Perry Commodore Perry Cambridge (1838 – 1908), moved to Indiana from Maryland via Kentucky, when he was a child. His grandfather was one of the first settlers of what would become Indiana (around 1799), and owned a tavern and general store on a major trade route. He donated money to start a school in his town for his children to go to, but the other people in the town wouldn’t let his kids attend because they were not white. So racism followed him and his family everywhere they went. It didn’t matter that he was a pioneer, free, or that he had money. It is not clear whether Perry or his parents were born into slavery (though many of his extended family were), he was listed in the census as a free person of color through 1890. His first and only marriage was to my great grandmother (who was white) at the age of 60 in 1897. My mother knew nothing about her grandfather Perry, or his family growing up. It’s unclear how much my grandfather Paul (he died in 1969) actually knew, he was only two when his father died.
My grandfather, Paul Cambridge, and his mother, Lavonna Storm. We don’t have any photographs of Perry Commodore Cambridge, Paul’s father. He died before this picture was taken. Photo taken around 1910. My son looks exactly like my grandfather Paul. Even though I never got to meet my grandfather, I feel like I understand his life and history more after researching his family history.
Slavery in America robbed members of my family of our history like it has done to every person descended from enslaved people. My mom’s last name, my son’s middle name, CAMBRIDGE, was taken from Cambridge, Maryland, a hub for the slave trade on the east coast. Harriet Tubman was born in Cambridge, Maryland. I like to think that William Hunt Cambridge took the last name CAMBRIDGE because he imagined a life where a fancy last name would make all the difference for him and his family. But that was not to be. In America, only skin color mattered.
Edwin R. Cambridge (1842-1926), son of John Hunt Cambridge and wife Matilda Malson. He was Perry’s cousin. The image on the right is his Civil War photo. He was in the 2nd (41st) Indiana Cavalry Regiment.
And 300 years later, I am still unsure of so many things. Except for the fact that history is truth, and sharing it, however painful, is the only way to move forward and understand.
There is still so much more for me to uncover about my family history, and it seems that as soon as I think I have it figured out, I find some new story and my whole perspective changes. My family history makes me very aware of the privilege that America can bestow on some and take away from others. My ancestors were a product of both, and while mine has been a mostly privileged journey, my awareness of the disparity among the people in my lineage deepens my empathy and helps me have an innate understanding of the ongoing challenges faced by marginalized people in America.
I am a combination of many different stories. The things I have discovered about my genealogy make me want to delve even deeper into who and why I am, and what it means to be an American, a mother, and an artist. Creating art that contemplates many narratives; I’m able to see the pain, good fortune, tough luck and ingenuity that create the sum of many parts that culminates in me and provides the stuff of what my children will grow into.