Mississippians trace their family tree, and how one can trace theirs Mississippians trace their family tree, and how one can trace theirs Associated Press, That’s how it looked to Melissa Evans when she compared her family tree to the ones created by her third-grade classmates. Some of her white classmates had branches stretching back centuries. Evans, one of only a handful of black students at her school in Gulfport, traced her family to her great-grandparents. When other students asked why Evans’ tree was so short, their teacher didn’t want to talk about slavery, how it tore apart black families in the United States, and Evans isn’t sure it would have been the right setting for the conversation anyway. More than 30 years later, she remembers the feeling of embarrassment, of lacking something.