Courtesy of William Holland

Cameroonians marvel over an 18th-century slave shackle that was brought to Africa for a "history lesson" by African-American businessman William Holland, at far left.

Decades after they were taken away, African ceremonial masks have been returned to the communities that venerated them, thanks to an African-American family researcher who bought them through eBay.

Georgia businessman William Holland, who has been tracing his roots in West Africa for more than a decade, carried the three masks back with him last month during his latest trek to Cameroon. That's not all he was carrying: Holland also brought relics from the mid-18th century — the time when his ancestor was taken from Cameroon, loaded onto a ship, brought to Virginia and sold into slavery.

The masks made a big impression on the hundreds of Cameroonians who gathered for Holland's show-and-tell session. But the slave chains made an even bigger impression.

"When we brought the shackles out, that's when they were about to cry," he said. "They were shocked to see an authentic item that brought so much pain along with it."

Holland's frequent trips to Cameroon's Oku and Nso regions have been a learning experience for him as well as for his long-lost cousins. It took years for Holland to narrow down his approximate place of origin, based on DNA tests as well as a study of American and African pedigrees. Along the way, Holland found out that one of his ancestors was a slave who was pressed into service in the Confederate Army, and that more distant ancestors were members of royal families in Cameroon.

During the buildup to his latest trip, Holland combed through online auction sales, looking for artifacts that could help bridge the gap between the African and American history of his family. He worked with Cameroonian contacts to identify two elephant masks that were associated with the Nso people's secret rituals, plus a wooden mask with a human visage that was used by Oku families during funerals.

The masks were sold out of Africa in the 1970s or 1980s under murky circumstances, and eventually ended up in private hands. "It's almost the same thing as the slave trade," Holland observed. "Outsiders go to a middleman and ask them to get something or someone for them. 'I'm giving you guns, I'm giving you cowrie shells, I'm giving you iron bars. Bring me the people to fill this ship, and I'll give you this.' That's what it reminded me of."

Holland spent hundreds of dollars of his own money to buy the masks, as well as other items such as throwing knives, the wrist and ankle shackles and a "monkey wrench quilt" — a type of quilt that slaves used to signal each other that it was time to wrap up their tools and get ready for an escape. Then he headed for the Cameroonian towns of Kumbo, Bamenda and Oku.

Courtesy of William Holland

The Fon of Nso, leader of one of Cameroon's tribal groups, looks on as his aides examine a Cameroonian throwing knife that was purchased on eBay. Some of the aides are looking at a photo of a statue of Ngonnso that was taken from Cameroon to Berlin before 1910. Cameroonian authorities are seeking the statue's return.

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland, left, gets his picture taken with Cameroonian Prime Minister Philemon Yunji Yang and Emmanuel Motika, a physics teacher from the Cameroonian town of Bamenda who is an extremely distant relative of Holland.

"It's more than just bringing things back," he explained. "It's a history lesson about those who were taken away during the slave trade. The Cameroonians didn't receive this information in school."

Holland's trip caused a sensation in Cameroon: More than 1,000 townspeople turned out to see the American who was bringing their treasures back. In Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, Holland met the prime minister. Journalists clamored for interviews. "It was crazy," Holland said. "It was a media circus."

The chiefs of the Nso and Oku peoples, who are known as "fons," joined up to give Holland a title that combines two honored names: "Shufaay," a title that is typically given to the Nso noble next in line to the king; and "Bailack," which recognizes Holland's connection to a patriarch who came to Oku from Nso centuries ago. "No Nso son or daughter is allowed to shake hands with a Shufaay again, if they are not of the same status," Holland said. "This goes back to the ancient way of doing things." 

All the attention was great — but for Holland, the most important result of the trip was the restoration of pieces of African history to their rightful places. Authorities in Kumbo are building a cultural museum that will eventually house the elephant masks and other Nso artifacts. And family members in the Oku region now have the funerary mask they were missing when their loved ones passed away.

The Fon of Oku drew a lesson from Holland's round of eBay diplomacy — a lesson that's particularly timely for the month of February, recognized in the United States as Black History Month. "He was telling people not to sell these precious things from our society," Holland recalled. "This is wrong. No matter how much money they offer, do not sell."

Holland is already planning his next trip, to the Cameroonian city of Buea in May. He'll be taking over some new history lessons to his ancestral homeland, but he's also hoping to bring back some business: Holland is planning to start up a travel business to put other African-Americans in touch with their roots, and the Africa Travel Association's annual congress in Buea seems like the perfect place for networking.

"I guess you'd call it 'historical tourism,'" Holland said. "Cameroon is really an untapped market for that."

Previous chapters in the African saga:

• 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
• 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
• 2011: Black history saga comes full circle
• 2011: Africans visit their American cousins
• 2011: Genes tell a tale as big as Africa 
• 2012: African-American's roots revised
• 2012: Tribal treasures recovered through eBay
• African American news from theGrio 

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Courtesy of William Holland

African-American genealogist William Holland, dressed in traditional garb, shows off the ceremonial masks he bought on eBay. He plans to return the masks to the tribes from whence they came during a trip to Cameroon.

When family researcher William Holland flies back to his ancestral homeland in Cameroon next week, he'll be bearing gifts: ceremonial masks that were taken out of Africa decades ago, purchased by Holland in online auctions, and now destined to be returned to the tribes from whence they came.

It's an unusual exercise in citizen diplomacy, but one that's fitting for Martin Luther King Jr. Day — an occasion that celebrates the late civil-rights leader's legacy and encourages volunteer service.

"You're always supposed to give back," Holland said. "Even if you have nothing, at least try to give something to somebody so they can move ahead, even if it's something as simple as a book. Now I'm able to do what's right and return these items that were stolen. And I hope that it leads the way for other people to give back as well, whether it's to a school, or an organization, or to society."

'Roots' for the 21st century
Holland has spent more than a decade fleshing out his ancestral connections. He's used documents, DNA tests and extensive interviews to trace his family back through the slave era in the South, back to Cameroon in West Africa, and maybe even back to Syria in ancient times. He's learned how people from Cameroon's Oku clan were kidnapped by slave traders in the 1700s, rounded up and sent to America. Those were the people who passed down their genetic heritage to Holland.

Now he's giving back, thanks in part to eBay.

The Atlanta businessman's project began when he learned about a statue of Ngonsso, the founder of Cameroon's Nso dynasty, which was taken from the country in the early 1900s during the colonial era and ended up in a German museum. Cameroonian officials have been working for years to get the statue repatriated, and Holland was looking for ways to support the campaign. During his research, he and his contacts in Cameroon came across items of cultural interest that were coming up for sale on eBay auction sites.

"Throwing knives, caps, many things from the palaces are on sale here in the U.S.," Holland said.

Holland decided to spend his own money to buy some of those items, including the masks. "One has been identified as an Oku mask, the other is Nso," he said. The Nso mask, depicting a colorful elephant, was said to be used by a secret society in their ceremonies, while the humanlike Oku mask was worn during funerals.

The masks were apparently taken from Cameroon in the 1970s or 1980s under murky circumstances, Holland said. Now he's gotten both of them back, along with some Cameroonian throwing knives, at a cost of more than $1,000 (including shipping).

"I'm doing this on my own, because it's the right thing to do," Holland said. "This is hopefully a preface to the return of the Ngonnso statue. It's not fair that you sell something that's sacred to the community."

Holland also plans to bring a set of slave-era shackles he bought on eBay, to use them as a visual aid when he tells his distant Cameroonian relatives the American side of the story surrounding his ancestors' abduction. "I don't think many of them know what happened during that time," he said.

What's in it for him?
In addition to forging better relations with his presumed relatives, Holland hopes his eBay diplomacy will lead to a role in future development projects, such as U.S.-supported programs to upgrade Cameroon's water and sanitation facilities and preserve the remains of a historic slave-trade port in Bimbia. He's also looking into starting a tour business that would be focused on his ancestral home in Oku country, with a twist of genetic genealogy added to the mix.

For Holland, this isn't just a business proposition. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, he has a dream: that the sons and daughters of former slaves will be able to work together with their African kin to make Africa — and America — a better place. 

"I'm glad that my eyes have been opened," Holland said. "I've learned a lot, and now I can do something to help change cultural awareness here in the U.S. and also in Cameroon. Now is a good time to do it."

Previous chapters in the African saga:

• 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
• 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
• 2011: Black history saga comes full circle
• 2011: Africans visit their American cousins
• 2011: Genes tell a tale as big as Africa 
• 2012: African-American's roots revised
• African American news from theGrio 

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Nexdim Empire

Atlanta-based family researcher William Holland sits alongside one of the Oku elders, Samuel Nshiom "Pa" Wambeng, during a visit to Cameroon in March. Wambeng passed away weeks after this picture was taken.

If you're an African-American, tracing your roots back to the ancestral continent is hard enough — but tracing them back to the ancestral family? That requires genetic testing, plus family-history scholarship, plus trips to Africa, plus a little bit of faith. William Holland has filled all of those requirements, and to celebrate, he's planning a cross-continental family reunion for Memorial Day weekend in Virginia, where his ancestors were once held as slaves.

"Memorial Day is a time for remembering the loved ones you lost, right?" Holland said. "So it's a good time to remember all those generations that were lost."

It's taken more than a decade for the 43-year-old Atlanta genealogist to fill in the story of those lost generations — a story that leads back to Cameroon, and then even further back to present-day Syria. The historical record is so fragmentary, and the genetic analysis is so imprecise, that Holland couldn't possibly achieve iron-clad scientific certainty about the precise family relationships. But the story that Holland has pieced together is consistent with the genetic tests as well as with the tales told by families in Africa and America. And just as importantly, the story finally feels right.

"What makes this more conclusive is that they had an authentic story that many people could verify," Holland said.

Holland's initial investigative work took him back to the Civil War era in Virginia, where he found that his great-grandfather, Creed Holland, was a slave who was put to work as a wagon driver for the Confederate Army. That led Holland and his brothers to sign up for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans — which was a controversial move at the time.

But Holland didn't stop there: He wanted to know how it was that Creed's ancestors became slaves in the first place. So he took advantage of a trend that was just getting started back then: genetic testing for the purpose of finding family connections. After a couple of false starts, Holland found enough matches to justify focusing in on a region of Cameroon in West Africa.

When I first started writing about Holland's quest, two years ago, he was following up on connections to royalty in northwest Cameroon's Mankon tribe. Holland visited the tribal leader, or Fon, in the regional capital of Bamenda — and received an African name (Ndefru) from the Fon of Mankon himself during a ceremony. Holland reciprocated the next year by inviting the royal family to a gathering in Franklin County, Va. The idea was to bring together the descendants of slaves and their African relations, and even the descendants of slaveowners. But something about the event felt wrong.

"The rest of the Mankon family really resisted the fact that they were coming over," Holland recalled. "That told me that 'this is not your family, because they should be happy, they should be welcoming you.'"

During follow-up trips to Africa, Holland learned more about the reason for the Mankon tribe's reluctance: Their ancestors were among several ethnic groups in that region of Cameroon who played a murky role in the slave trade of the 18th century. "Mankon didn't trade in their own people, but they were the middlemen for people [from other tribes] going down the coast," Holland said. "The Europeans would come to the coast and provide them with whiskey and guns to make people fight."

Some of this information came from the leaders of a different group, the Oku, who live in a region of Cameroon about 20 miles northeast of Bamenda. After visiting the region, hearing the tales of the elders and double-checking the genetic results, Holland feels confident that he now has the right story.

"You felt the sense of coming back," Holland told me. "You felt the welcoming that you should have gotten. They were running down the hill to come and meet us. That's how it was."

One of the Oku elders, Sam "Pa" Wambeng, told Holland that the Oku and other groups trace their heritage back to 7th-century Syria. When Islam took hold in the region, those groups made their way through the Middle East and Africa, eventually settling in Cameroon. In addition to the Oku, the settlers included the Mboum, Nso and Foumban peoples. 

Wambeng and other elders said there was a widely respected member of the Oku tribe named Bailack who lived in the 1700s. Bailack had several wives and scores of sons, but many of them were abducted and passed on to the European slavers during the reign of a ruthless fon named Ney.

"They say 70 individuals were taken directly from the family," Holland told me. "They would have been the children of Bailack. Two or three escaped, and that's how they continued with the family. The family has spread to more than eight villages in Oku, despite the number captured as slaves in the reign of Ney."

The time frame for that abduction, in the 1770s, matched up with the time frame for the voyage of Holland's great-great-great-great-grandfather to Virginia, where he was sold as a slave. And the rest is American history.

Courtesy of William Holland

Residents of an Oku village turn out to welcome William Holland during his visit to Cameroon.

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland (at right) and his brother Marvin flank the Fon of Oku during a visit in March.

Courtesy of William Holland

The house of an Oku patriarch named Bailack was built in the 1700s and is still standing in a Cameroonian village.

Do the genetics support Holland's status as Bailack's great-great-great-great-great-grandson? The evidence isn't indisputable. Thirty-one of the 36 genetic markers on the test that Holland took match up with the results from the Cameroonian clan. Genetic genealogy is a matter of probabilities, and the more markers two people have in common, the more likely it is that they're closely related. Thirty-one out of 36 is not super-close, but close enough for Holland to feel as if he's on the right track.

"The results from different family lines show that there were strong mutations that occurred in the 1600s and the 1700s. Given the amount of time from 1772 to this generation, it fits in a time frame where you can have those mutations occur," Holland told me. "I'm no geneticist by any means, but it sounds logical that could happen."

It's logical enough that Holland has scheduled another gathering, this time with members of the extended Oku clan as the special guests. It's due to take place around 1 p.m. ET on May 27, at the Franklin County Recreational Park near Rocky Mount, Va. Holland hopes that some of his long-lost relatives will be in attendance — but one of the dearest friends he made in Cameroon won't be there. Pa Wambeng, the elder who told the story that Holland has now made his own, passed away just a few weeks ago.

"I'm very honored to have gotten there and met him," Holland said, "because if we put off our trip, it would have been too late."

Previous chapters in the African saga:

• Sept. 8, 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
• Feb. 1, 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
• Feb. 28, 2011: Black history saga comes full circle
• July 3, 2011: Africans visit their American cousins
• Nov. 4, 2011: Genes tell a tale as big as Africa 
• African American news from theGrio 

Holland says the Memorial Day weekend reunion will serve as a memorial for "all the ancestors who traveled this path that affected our family line," including Pa Wambeng as well as Grace Ngum Tamufor, the recently deceased daughter of the previous Fon of Oku.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland, a family researcher from Georgia, tours a village in the Oku region of Cameroon.

Over the past year, William Holland's African-American family tale has grown in the telling, thanks to genetic testing and a whole lot of trans-Atlantic travel. The latest twist is a doozy: The Georgia resident has turned his research into a story that goes back to the seventh century.

Holland says he has found links to ancestors who lived in the Cameroonian region of Oku, who were captured by neighboring tribes and taken as slaves in Virginia. His story illustrates how the descendants of slaves can go beyond a painful chapter of American history and find their place in the broader sweep of world history. But the outcome isn't as precise as a paternity test.

"You have to put together the science and the history to make sense of it," he told me after his latest trips to West Africa. "To be honest, this is not an easy thing to do. You have to understand history, you have to understand migration patterns, you also have to understand culture. Most people would say, 'This is too much, because it's too complicated.' I would say this is a master's degree-level task."

Real families, real feelings
And it's not just an academic exercise. We're talking real families here. A year ago, Holland thought the genetic linkages showed a strong tie to royalty in a Cameroonian region known as Mankon. But after additional genetic tests and consultations with historians in Africa — including Samuel N. Wambeng, Nji Oumarou Nchare and Aboubakar Mgbekoum — he has focused on Oku instead. In fact, some of the people living around Mankon just might be the descendants of tribes that were involved in the slave trade.

"In Mankon, there were people who were dealers in trading people," Holland said. "They didn't trade their own people, but they were trading people from outside their community. So now it makes sense that I was not directly related to the palace in Mankon. Did my people come from there? No. Did they pass through there? Yes."

Even though the abduction from Africa happened in the 1770s, that part of the story has sparked bad feelings between Holland and some of the Cameroonians he came to know. "I didn't speak to them for a month," Holland told me. "It's still painful. ... Have you ever had a bad dream about being chained up in the bottom of a ship?"

Solving family mysteries
Unraveling history can leave scars, but it can also solve family mysteries. For example, the historians told Holland something that meshed with his memory of his sister's nickname. "Her name is Delores, but we always call her 'Nene,'" he said. "In Oku, 'Nene' basically means 'Mother.' That name was given to her by my father. These are very old names."

The DNA tests that Holland has taken mark marked the beginning of Holland's story, not the end. Most recently, Holland took a Y-chromosome test from Ancestry.com that looked at 46 genetic markers, and then he plugged the results into a database on the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation website. In some cases, comparisons with African test subjects in the database produced 33 matches out of 36 common markers.

"Normally they'll say, 'We're not related to someone,'" Holland observed. "Now the results show that, guess what, something must have occurred in those days for them to have nearly the same DNA as myself. Thirty-three out of 36 is pretty high."

Holland followed up by contacting the likeliest candidates for his kin.

"Genetics will only get you to the airport, but now where do you go?" he said. "You have to really find all the links. I'm lucky to have the information to find the links to the old names. With the names, people in Africa can say, 'This person was from this kingdom.' It's just like when people decide to go back to Scotland or Ireland, depending on whether your name begins with an 'M-A-C' or an 'M-C.'"

I can relate to that: I took a Y-chromosome test a decade ago in hopes of tracing my genetic roots in Ireland. I still haven't found a match close enough to confirm family ties in the old country, but the historical record provides enough information to make for a good tale about my great-grandfather's escape from western County Clare in 1847, during the Great Famine.

From Arabia to Virginia
Here's Holland's story, based on his visits to Ghana and Cameroon as well as the genetic results and the reports from the historians:

"We left Saudi Arabia around 622 when the time of Prophet Mohammed was implementing Islam.  A war ensued, and the Mboum people left and went to Egypt, then to the Sudan, then in the Tigray area of Ethiopia.  The city was in a town called Axum. Please note the Tigray province and the current tribal name of Tikar/Tikari.  From Ethiopia, the Mboum people went to the valley in Lake Chad in the north of Cameroon and arrived finally in 933 in the Adamawa region. The village that was set up in the Adamawa region was called Ngan-Ha, and Nya Sana was the first Fon [king]. The story told to me was that he (Nya Sana) was the youngest of the leaders that arrived from Ethiopia, but became the king because he retrieved the most powerful idol that fell from the sky.  There were a total of four leaders that came from Ethiopia, and all got their hands on one of the idols that fell from the sky.  These idols were in Mecca (Makah) in Arabia that flew from there and headed to Egypt then to the Sudan, Ethiopia and finally to Ngan-Ha.

"Took Gokor ruled from 1186 to 1217, as he was a direct descendant from Nya Sana. Princess Wouten (Wou-Ten or Betaka) ruled around 1201-1246, during which she founded the Tinkala kingdom. So the tribal name change was from Mboum to Tinkala and finally to Tikari/Tikar. The Tikar kingdom was created around 1300.  The migration pattern was from Ngan-Ha to Tibati, Ina and finally Bankim or Kimi.  Kimi and Bankim are names that are used interchangeably when referring to this ancient area of various tribes in Cameroon. Around 1387, Fon Mbe left Bankim due to chieftancy disputes, and also he did not want to be killed while ruling. Nchare Yen supposedly had the right to become the next Fon, but was passed over by his half brother. Mbe, Ngonnso and Nchare Yen were siblings from the same mother and father. They left in fear, founding the kingdoms of Bankim, Foumban and Banso.  Ngonnso founded Banso, while Nchare Yen founded Foumban.  Nchare was the youngest of the siblings.

"I believe my common ancestor [linked to the royalty] lived around 1550, during the time when Fon Ngang was on the throne.  He ruled from 1540 to 1588.  According to the SMGF DNA results, the time period for the common ancestor was about 440 years ago. Also, there is a possibility that it could have been in Foumban. The eighth Fon of Foumban founded Banka, and his name was Ngapna (1590-1629).  The familes that are in Banka and Bafang must have descended from the Prince of Ngapna. 

"The Wambeng family of Oku descends from the third Fon, who was named Ney. Oku was founded around 1650, so the third Fon would be close to accurate for the 1770s time period. The people of Bali were hired by the coastal slavers, who gave them guns to capture individuals for the Virginia plantation owners. Bali is not too far away from Mankon.  I asked the elder about this whole scenario, and he told me the year adds up to when Ney was ruling.  Those who were captured, including my ancestor, were guards of the palace.

"The Bali people came with guns and created quite a scene, resulting in the capture of my ancestor. They were taken to the coast, and the rest is history.  Meanwhile, in Foumban, the 11th Fon also lost children due to the fighting that was going on at the same time.  It's very possible that when all of them arrived in Bimbia, they knew they were the same people, but spoke different languages and could not communicate with each other.  I was told that the slavers arranged things intentionally so that you would be separated if you spoke the same language/dialect, to prevent insurrection on the ship. 
 
"Because of Ngonnso, the kingdoms of Oku, Banso (Kumbo) and Mbiame are related, and also Kom would have to be included.  There is a good relationship between all of them today, and who knows? Maybe a big party would happen if we all go back to meet the family in Oku."

So now what? Holland is still working on the later chapters of his family's story — the part that includes his slave ancestors in Virginia, including one ancestor who was taken into the Confederate Army for a time. But the chapters that excite Holland the most are the ones that go way back into the past.

"I guess I'll always have a curious gene in there, a gene that makes me want to find out," he told me. "Will I stop after this? Hopefully there's be a different thing to work on. I'd like to go to the east — to Egypt, and Ethiopia."

Earlier chapters in the African-American saga:

• Sept. 8, 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
• Feb. 1, 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
• Feb. 28, 2011: Black history saga comes full circle
• July 3, 2011: Africans visit their American cousins 
• African American news from theGrio

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Courtesy of William Holland

Marvin and William Holland, from left, sit beside Ntomnifor Richard Fru during an African-American reunion in June. Genetic analysis suggests that the Holland brothers are distantly related to Fru's Cameroonian family.

Thanks to 21st-century genetic testing, William Holland is finally able to show some of his African cousins what happened to his slave ancestors back in the 18th century. The climax of Holland's quest came last weekend, when about 60 African-Americans and Africans gathered at Franklin County Recreational Park in Virginia for a teach-in about his family's ocean-spanning, three-century saga.

The 42-year-old Holland, who lives in Atlanta, left his job at Coca-Cola and turned his focus to the family quest nine years ago. The quest is particularly difficult for African-Americans like Holland because their ancestors came over in chains with their African identity erased. Holland eventually figured out that his great-great-great-great-grandfather was brought over from Africa around 1772 and sold to a Virginia plantation owner. He even discovered that his great-grandfather, Creed Holland, was forced to serve in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

But traditional genealogical research couldn't give Holland any further clues as to his African origins. Exactly where did his ancestors come from? Did he have any present-day cousins back in the old country? That's where genetic tests could point the way.

Holland had his DNA analyzed for markers that just might match up with African kin who had taken similar tests. Records held by the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation suggested that he might be related to the king of a region in Cameroon's Northwest Province, named Fon Angwafo III. When Holland visited Cameroon and laid out his records for the king and his counselors to inspect, he was welcomed as a long-lost relative. In fact, during a follow-up visit with other family members, Holland was ceremonially named Ndefru, after Fon Angwafo's father.

The Africans told how they lost their kin during the days of the slave trade — but when the African-Americans told how their ancestors lost their identity through slavery, Holland's Cameroonian cousins just couldn't believe it. So Holland invited "the Fon" and his family to come over to America and learn more about the other side of the slavery story.

It took months to make all the arrangements, and Fon Angwafo III himself couldn't make the trip because of political obligations at home — but late last month, the Fon's wife, Queen Kiko Anna Angwafo, finally arrived in America along with the king's son and nephew to see the region in Virginia where Holland's ancestor ended up. Holland and his family were the Africans' hosts for a family reunion on June 25. Cameroonians from the Mankon region ruled by the Fon and from the nation's West Region attended the event as well.

Courtesy of William Holland

African-Americans and African visitors wear traditional garb at the Frontier Culture Museum's West Africa farm exhibit near Staunton, Va. From left are William (Ndefru) Holland, Regina and Kamari Holland, Marvin (Tsi) Holland, Prince Peter Tseghama Angwafo, Willie Mae (Mankah) Holland, Queen Kiko Anna Angwafo, Ntomnifor Richard Fru and Eric Bryan, the museum's deputy director.

Courtesy of William Holland

Queen Kiko Anna Angwafo picks up a pestle at the Frontier Culture Museum's West Africa village exhibit.

One of the highlights was a visit to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Va., where a replica West African village has been built to give visitors a taste of life before slavery.

But the climax came when the Africans were taken to the old Holland plantation, where William Holland's ancestors lived as slaves (and took on the last name of their owners).

"The whole purpose was to tie in the missing links," Holland told me. And by that measure, he judged the reunion to be a great success. The Cameroonians saw a blacksmith shop from the Civil War era. They soaked in the history as they toured the plantation's old chicken house and slave kitchen. They walked around the graves where slaves and their owners were buried.

"They totally understood," Holland said. He quoted them as saying, "Now we know you weren't joking around when you told us about this. ... It's very clear now, the pain and suffering you went through when you came to America."

And there was a bonus: A descendant of the slave owners, John Sherrard Holland, served as the Africans' tour guide.

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland's family and his African visitors meet with John Sherrard Holland, a descendant of the plantation owners who held William Holland's ancestors in slavery.

"It was a great honor and a pleasure to do that," the 55-year-old operator of a hunting preserve told me later. He went to school with members of William's family, and "we've always had the best of relationships," he said.

As for the dark past of slavery, John Sherrard Holland said that has been left far behind. "It's history," he said.

But William Holland said that history is worth reflecting upon once more, particularly at a time when America is celebrating Independence Day. He noted that when Americans heralded their freedom in 1776, his African ancestor had been unfree for four years. "Just imagine what he was thinking," Holland said.

"Is it time for celebration?" he asked. "I don't know. But now we're trying to do justice to that heritage — and that's something to celebrate."

Previous chapters in the tale of William Holland's roots:

• Sept. 8, 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
• Feb. 1, 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
• Feb. 28, 2011: Black history saga comes full circle 
• African American news from theGrio

 For further information about genetic testing for genealogical purposes, check out this guide on Cyndi's List, or this entry on Wikipedia. If you happen to be a Boyle looking for genealogical information, take a look at my Boyle family website. You can also connect with me via Facebook or Twitter. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."

Courtesy of William Holland

Atlanta genealogical researcher William Holland, left, stands alongside the Queen Mother for the Ghanaian village of Adidokpoe-Battor (center) and William Akpaglo. The two Williams share genetic markers, suggesting that they are distantly related.

Based on his genetic profile, William Holland considers himself a descendant of noble families going back more than a millennium. Between then and now, however, his ancestors were dispersed around the African continent — and some of them were brought to America as slaves. That's the branch of the family to which Holland and his family belong.

Now, Holland is bringing the centuries-old saga of his family full circle by inviting his long-lost relatives to come from Africa to America. If Holland's plan works out, African royalty will meet face-to-face with the descendants of slaves and slave owners in Virginia.

"It's something that's never been done before," Holland told me today, on the last day of Black History Month. "It's something that should not be missed."

The genesis of Holland's plan goes back to the trips he's taken over the past year to fill in the gaps in his genetic heritage. Y-chromosome tests suggested that his ancestors were related not only to a royal family in the West African nation of Cameroon, but also to a noble family in Ghana, hundreds of miles away. 

"I'm overwhelmed now," said Holland, who is the great-grandson of a slave who found himself serving in the Confederate army during the Civil War. But Holland isn't too overwhelmed to make a kind of sense out of his tangled genetic tale.

This month, during a visit to his genetic relatives in Ghana, Holland pieced together a story of a grand migration. A comparison of his Y-chromosome markers with those of the families in Ghana and Cameroon suggested that their most recent common ancestor lived perhaps 50 generations ago, or roughly 1,000 to 1,500 years ago. His Ghanaian hosts, members of the Akpaglo family, told him that their ancestors migrated southward from Sudan and settled in the Oyo Empire. Holland assumes that his Cameroonian ancestors were part of that migration as well.

"From there, they split up," he told me. One ancestral line eventually took root in Ghana, another in Cameroon. Holland has now been to both nations to track down his pedigree. Armed with the genetic results, he was initiated into two African families.

In Cameroon, Holland was given a royal name ("Ndefru"). In Ghana, the Akpaglo family gave him three more African names during a seven-hour ceremony. Holland's new names include Togbe ("old wise man," even though Holland is in his 40s), Korsi ("born on Sunday," which he was) and Degboe ("brave person who went away and returned").

"I'm satisfied now — now that I have four names," Holland joked.

But he's not finished yet. Holland still wants to share the experience he had with his fellow Americans, and at the same time give African visitors a taste of America. Holland says some of his friends and relatives back home in Atlanta are irked by the idea that they were somehow sold into slavery by their African ancestors. His African friends and relatives say that's not the way it was. So Holland is trying to organize a daylong reunion and seminar on May 22 in Virginia, where his ancestors worked as slaves, to give Africans and Americans a chance to talk through their history together.

Holland has invited Fon Angwafo III, who heads the Mankon tribal group in Cameroon, as well as family representatives from Ghana. He's hoping that his African-American relatives as well as the descendants of the Virginia family who held his ancestors as slaves will be on hand as well.

"You hope to enlighten your family about Africa and what happened in the slave trade," Holland explained.

Holland has already heard that "the Fon" has accepted his invitation, and he's pretty sure someone from Ghana also will be coming. It's not a done deal yet, but if everything works out the way Holland hopes, one man's quest to find his family roots will turn into a meeting of the clans from across oceans of time and space.

Holland says his newfound African kin can hardly wait. "They're past excited right now," he told me. All in all, not a bad way to end Black History Month.

Feel free to recount your own family quest in the comment section below. For more coverage of Black History Month and beyond, check in with msnbc.com's corporate cousins at TheGrio.com.

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book about Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland, a genealogical researcher from Atlanta, dances to the left of Fon Angwafo III, the king of the Mankon tribal group in Cameroon, during a ceremony.

When William Holland traveled from Atlanta to Cameroon to dig into his family roots, the quest succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: A blend of genetic testing and genealogical sleuthing connected him with one of the West African nation's royal families. The king of Mankon, a region in Cameroon, embraced Holland so completely that the American was ceremonially given the name of the king's father. 

But now Holland is facing an embarrassment of genealogical riches: Since he first came upon his royal connection, he has determined that he's genetically linked not only with nobility in Cameroon, but also with a different clan in Ghana, hundreds of miles to the west.

"I think I'm getting toward the end of it ... but with this group, you have thousands of thousands of people," Holland told me as he headed for another extended-family reunion in Ghana.

Holland's experience demonstrates how the search for family roots in Africa doesn't always result in the neat succession of generations that was portrayed in the 1977 miniseries "Roots." It also suggests that Black History Month, which Americans observe every February, might more aptly be called Black Histories Month.

"Who was the ancestor that all of us are from?" Holland asked. "Who was he? That's the question I want to answer, but I don't know how to ask. This one man created thousands of people, but who was he? This one man ... he was something!"

Tracing African roots
African-American roots are notoriously tough to trace back from America to Africa, for an obvious reason: When traders brought shipments of slaves across the Atlantic, families were sundered and the old names were forgotten. Owners typically gave slaves their own family names — which is what happened to William Holland's ancestors.

Holland has gone through more than his share of twists and turns as a genealogical researcher: Years ago, he found out that his great-grandfather, Creed Holland, was a slave wagon driver who was forced to serve in the Confederate infantry during the Civil War. That led Holland to sign up for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans — a move that didn't exactly sit well with some whites and some blacks.

Nine years ago, Holland thought his ancestors came from Nigeria. But since then, there's been a revolution in the use of genetic testing to firm up genealogical ties. Holland took a DNA test offered by GeneTree and pored over records compiled by the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, GeneTree's nonprofit sister organization. SMGF's database was suited to Holland's search because it combines genetic matching with genealogical pedigrees. If your DNA markers match up with someone else in the database, the pedigree of the person you match just might provide new clues for family sleuthing.

The database was particularly attractive for Holland because the foundation's testing teams went out to gather DNA samples from people in countries around the world, including African nations. This offered a way for Holland to "leap across the ocean" and find genetic connections to families in the old country, even if he couldn't trace the precise line of ancestry.

Royal cousins
The genetic links led Holland to turn his search from Nigeria to Cameroon, where he came upon a doozy of a connection. The DNA matches suggested that he was related to the Mankon king, Fon Angwafo III, as well as other noble families in that country. Thanks to the SMGF database, Holland could show his assumed African kin detailed genealogical information when he visited Cameroon in March.

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland says he sees a resemblance between his father Sam Holland Sr. (left) and Fon Angwafo III (right).

"The Fon" and his aides examined the records ... and welcomed Holland as a long-lost relative. He was so welcome, in fact, that his whole family was invited to come to Cameroon in November as guests of the king.

The Holland entourage — William, his 80-year-old mother Willie Mae Holland, his brother Marvin and his sister Wanda — received the royal treatment. "I get treated better there than I do in the U.S.," William Holland told me. One of the most thrilling moments came when the king gave each of the Hollands a Cameroonian name. William was named Ndefru, after Fon Angwafo III's father, Ndefru III. "The name goes back to the 1500s," Holland said.

One of the most sobering moments came when the visitors were shown three or four huts where captured Africans were kept prior to their departure for America.

"You try to hold back, but tears flow out of your eyes," Holland told me. "You couldn't control it. You just knew, in 1772 or thereabouts, you knew what was going on. You could only imagine those people who were going down to the coast, what they were thinking. When they got down there, they'd think, 'Uh-oh. This is not good.'"

Holland said his African hosts stressed that the tribe's long-ago chiefs did not hand over their ancestors for payment, and they hoped that the Americans would not hold their African kin responsible for the horrors of slavery. They also had a question for their American cousins: "How was it not possible to keep your family name?"

Holland had to explain that traders and slave owners worked mightily to separate families and clans, to erase the ties that united the slaves brought to America's shores. "Your name was taken away from you as soon as you got off the boat," Holland said.

Courtesy of William Holland

American visitors are surrounded by their hosts in Cameroon. The Americans are, from left, William Holland (dressed in blue-and-white-patterned traditional garb), Willie Mae Holland, Wanda Lee Chewning and Marvin Leon Holland.

 When it came time for Holland and his family to return to America, the family researcher's head was bursting with the lore of Cameroon and the Mankon people — and yet he realized that he had just scratched the surface. "I saw just a tenth of what really goes on in terms of tradition," he told me. "You have to be there for a year or more to learn all the culture."

New connections
The funny thing about DNA is that it can link a whole tree's worth of genealogical branches. After his trip to Cameroon, Holland delved once more into the genetic database, and found potential connections to families in Ghana as well. Does that mean the Cameroon connection was incorrect? Not really. Because of different migrations through the generations, it's possible to have genetic cousins spread over a wide geographic range.

"Most of the migration periods in Africa began in the 1300s or 1400s. That goes back 28 generations, give or take," Holland said. "You keep the same DNA because you have the same ancestor, from Sudan or Cameroon or present-day Ghana. The same Y-chromosome is there."

One Ghanaian family in particular was a "very high match," Holland said, and so he struck up a correspondence. "I have spoken with the family, and they said, 'How'd you get this information?' So I sent them the pedigree, and they were shocked," he said.

Holland felt such a strong connection that he flew from Atlanta to Accra last week to meet yet another set of prospective cousins. He wasn't disappointed.

"So far, so good," he told me last week during a phone call from Ghana. "Everything is matching up. They look like me."

The news was still good today when Holland checked in again. "It's kind of strange how much everything is matching up," he said. Holland is due to get back to Atlanta just in time for the Super Bowl this weekend.

Before he left for Ghana, Holland told me that he felt ready to move on to the next phase of his family odyssey. "The next step now is, you want to go and educate people on both sides of the water," he said. "Americans need to know what it's like in Africa. And the people in Africa, they still don't know what happened to those people who went down to the coast, hundreds of years ago. It was a one-way ticket."

Well, it's not a one-way ticket anymore — at least not for Holland.

More about genealogy:

• Pilgrims and Indians in her family tree
• Genealogists discover royal roots for all
• Prince William's fiancee has Yankee lineage
• DNA takes on a family's mysteries
• Database catalogs slaves' treks
• Tracing genetic 'Roots' to Africa
• Cyndi's List: African-American genealogy
• Special report on genetic genealogy

Correction for 3 p.m. ET Feb. 4: Creed Holland was William's great-grandfather, not great-great-grandfather, and Willie Mae's age went from 79 to 80 years in November. Best wishes to Willie Mae, and thanks to William for pointing out the errors. Sorry about that!

Stay tuned for an update after his return from Ghana, and feel free to recount your own family quest in the comment section below. For more coverage of Black History Month, check in with msnbc.com's corporate cousins at TheGrio.com.

 Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book about Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."