David Alston | Discovering Purpose Through Your Ancestors

Oftentimes when people research in their family history they're looking for inspiration. They're looking for ancestors who did hard things, who were successful, and who can inspire them in their own struggles and what they want to achieve in life. That is what David Alston found.

David was adopted as an infant, though the story is complicated, as you will hear in this episode. But as he learned about his birth family he discovered he was related to Harriet Tubman.  Knowing how she lived her life, and that he had a blood connection to her, inspired David to what his purpose in life could be and how he could move forward in helping other people live their own.

About David Alston:

David Alston has over thirty-five years of experience as an educator, motivational speaker and public figure. David is the 3rd cousin of Harriet Tubman. He has dedicated his life to helping others to live a free and better life. David is the host of The Underground Subway, which is a podcast that focuses on discussing the issues and strategies that will lead to freedom and a better way of life. David is the author of "Blood, Sweat and Cheers... The roadmap to success" and "Son of Another Mother... The Struggle of Adoption." David has a strong passion for motivating others to survive and achieve their purpose.

Connect with him on Facebook @BishopDavidAlston 

This podcast is supported by Heather Murphy's TraceLine Success.  Get your free workbook, Success is Found in Your Roots, at heathercmurphy.com/successworkbook

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Transcript

David Alston | Discovering Purpose Through Your Ancestors

Heather Murphy: Hi David. Thanks for joining me today.

David Alston: Good evening. Thank you for having me.

Heather Murphy: Could you start by just giving us a little bit of an idea of who you are?

David Alston: Well, my name is David Austin. I currently live in North Carolina. I'm originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And, uh, I have an extensive background in education. I was an educator with children with disabilities for 20 years, and now I work with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and their cancer research department.

I am a podcaster. I post a podcast entitled The Underground Subway, and their podcast just deals with giving all of the tools and strategies needed for everyone to live a better life and use experiences growing adult to help others. Just a motivational speaker. I love talking people to live a better life.

Heather Murphy: Well, that's great. Well, let's talk about your story today. Can you talk about your younger years and finding out that you were adopted and how that affected you as a child. 

David Alston: Well, I've always known that I was adopted. I was adopted at the age of seven months. And I've always known that I was adopted. My mother would always share with me, You were adopted and you have siblings out there somewhere. And she always tried to find them. She always tried to find my siblings and my biological mom, but she never could locate them.

And so it was, it was kind of difficult knowing that you're adopted and even more difficult knowing that somewhere out there you have brothers and sisters. Because I grew up in a home. It was just my mother and I. And so at that time there was a heavy stigma on adoption to where it was almost an embarrassment.

You didn't tell the other kids growing up in the neighborhood that you were adopted, or you would get teased and ridiculed. And you go to the doctor the doctor would ask you about your family history, medical history, and you couldn't say anything because you were adopted. You really didn't know. And so you have a lot of questions about your identity. And when you're with the family, at their family gatherings, there's something inside of you that's thinking, I'm not really one of you, although I'm with you.

So it was always an inner struggle going on, and yet I didn't know how to attempt to find my siblings or my biological mother, but my adopted mother was trying, so I thought. 

Heather Murphy: So how did you come to find your biological family?

David Alston: At the age is 18 years old. My little cousin was about five or six years old and he was looking through the Philadelphia phonebook. So you're talking about three to four inch phonebook, and he's playing with the phonebook. Mom says to him, You need to put that phone book down before you tear it or rip the pages out. He told her, "Well, I'm looking for someone."

And she said, "Well, you don't know how to look for someone. Let me show you how to look for someone." So she opened the phone book and pointed to a name and it was my biological mother's name. She was in shock because she had been looking for her for years again. So I thought she called her and asked her, Was this the same lady that gave her baby away at seven months old. It was her. She arranged for a meeting that night for me to go to the house where I went to the house. I immediately met my mom and my brothers and sisters. It was amazing because. It was seventh grade I walked out. I've always been a very shy person until I get to know you, and I was very shy.

And I remember in the seventh grade I walked into the hallway and I saw this beautiful young lady who was probably eight, ninth grade, the guys were telling me, you know, go say something to her and I would tell them, No, no, It's just something about her. And when that night when I went to the house and met my family for the first time I met my brothers, I was in awe that here I am standing for the first time face to face with someone that looks just like me, that laugh like. I met my nieces and nephews, and I met my sisters, and then when I looked up, there was the girl that I saw in the seventh grade standing there and I pointed to her, "It's you." That girl happened to be my sister.

Heather Murphy: So you kind of hinted, uh, that you, so you thought that your mom was working to find your birth family. What do you mean by that? 

David Alston: Well, one of the struggles that I've always had, all of this occurred back in the, uh, at seven months old in the mid sixties. And so things were a lot different. When you wanted to get a driver's license in the seventies, the only thing you needed to do was present a social security card and a baptismal certificate from the church, which I have that.

The one thing that I never had was a birth certificate. I could not get a birth certificate because there was no birth certificate in existence with my name on, and because there was no birth certificate with my name on it, of course I couldn't obtain a passport. So I went for years trying get a passport and get a birth certificate and, to know avail.

So when I tried to get a birth certificate, which I had one with my birth name, but I didn't have one with my adopted name. I, I went to senators, I went to attorneys and I talked to everyone and all of them told me the same thing, that I had a problem because I have a, an identity, but I don't have an identity.

I have a name, but there's nothing attached to. And that could eventually lead to a problem at retirement because without the birth certificate, there was no way of me proving who I was. I tried everything I could to get a name change, but every attorney and even the local senator said to me, You can't change your name from one thing to the same thing.

And so I really just gave up. I had been asking my adopted mom for years. Uh, she passed away in, in 2011. Before that, I had been asking her for years for my adoption papers because the attorney said if you had adoption papers, it would at least give us something to start to work with. 

So one day I'm talking to my biological mom and I told her, I said, You know, you think that I'm upset with you because you gave me away. We had had the conversation couple of years earlier, and I told her, I'm not upset with you that you gave me away because you could have put me in a dumpster. You could have placed me in a trash bag or threw me away.

But you at least loved me enough to put me up for adoption. So we're talking one day and she asking me have, am I making any progress on getting my birth certificate and passport, and I says to her, No, I haven't gotten. The problem is I need my adoption papers. I said, And she died without giving them to me. Every time I asked for 'em, she would tell me they're in, in, in the closet, in boxes or something. I had to dig through the boxes to find it. Once she died, we went through all of her papers and there were no adoption papers. 

So at that point, my mother says to me, after a moment of silence, and I said, Why are you so silent? I need my adoption papers. There were no adoption papers. What do you mean? In no adoption papers?

She said when you were seven months old, she was going through a very difficult financial period. They were, every time the rent was due, they would move to another location. She was a single mother raising six children without any help. She said my, my father totally walked away from her and didn't help her financially.

So she spoke with a friend who said he had a friend who had a sister, and the sister was a member of a church, in that maybe the church would help. The woman came to the house and talked to my mother, that woman being my adopted mother. She then told my mother, "I have an idea to help you. Let me have one of your kids to babysit long term. I will take the kid home. I will basically raise the child, take care of the child, feed the child. that way financially there's less of a burden on you to have to feed, cloth, and raise one of the babies. Let me do that for the baby. And then when you get on your feet, whether it's si a week, whether it's six months or a year, whenever you contact me, come by the house and get your baby back."

My mother says, "Sure, that's fine. That's a big help." Well, when my mother got on her feet and went to the house to get me, no one came to the door. The neighbor came to the door and asked, "Ma'am, who are you looking for?" And she said, "Um, looking for Mrs. Alston." The neighbor said, "the woman that had the little baby?"

Yes. "Oh. As soon as she bought the baby home, she moved away." I told her, "Do you know what you're saying happened to me?" She said she moved away, no one could locate her. she went to the police and of course you're talking in the sixties, so you don't have Google and uh, any way of social media tracking someone down the police that told her, "Ma'am, you are exactly right and what you're telling us that happened to your child. He was basically abducted. But the only issue is you gave the child to her. It's not like she came to your house and while you were using the restroom, she snatched your child and took off. You handed her the child and said, Take the child home. Now you wanna go get the child back. And she's gone." And she kept me forever.

She said that when I was, and she, she said at that moment she went into depression not knowing where her child was. She said that, The part about finding me in the book wasn't true. She said, I've always been in the phone book. She never looked for me. She said she started drinking real heavily because she had lost and had made the mistake of giving her baby away.

She said that she went on like this for years until she would drink heavily until one day her sister came to the house and told her, I'm tired of you living this life. We're gonna you gonna me to church tomorrow? And the pastor's gonna pray with you so that you can stop drinking. And so she went with her to church that Sunday, and as the pastor was praying, he stopped and said, I have an idea at this.

By this time I'm about five or six years old, the pastor said at five years old, he has to be enrolled in school. So he took all of the church members and divided them into groups, and they went throughout the entire city to every elementary school asking for me. They came to the school where I was sitting and walked into the office and asked the secretary if I was enrolled there.

The secretary said no, because she had enrolled me under the name David Alston and not my birth name. So later on when I found my school enrollment papers. It had at my name, my birth, the name of this student is Edward Bright. However, he is being known as going by David Alston. So at that time the secretary said, There's no Edward Bright here, but I was actually in the room.

And so that was a very traumatic experience to find out that I was actually abducted. And what it did was it really made, it really created a stronger bond between my mother and I.

Heather Murphy: And so how did you move forward then with getting to know your biological family and, and history from that point? 

David Alston: Well, I really began to really spend more time with them. I went to my first family reunion and I took my daughter with me. And they wheeled out this giant table with the family tree and there was a gentleman there who was going to give a speech and I'm saying, ok, you know what is, Why is this guy here to give a speech about our family?

And my daughter looks at the family tree and she screams out, Oh my God, Dad, no one will believe this. None of my friends are gonna believe this. And I'm, you know, what are you talking about? And when I looked at the family tree, there was my name on the family tree. However, when you looked at my biological grandmother, who was Gola Ross, Bright.

Her maiden name was Ross. Her father was Henry Ross. Henry Ross. His brother was Benjamin Ross. So Benjamin Ross was my grandmother's uncle. Benjamin Ross's daughter was Aramentia Ross. Aramentia Ross and my grandmother were first cousins. And Aramentia Ross then married a gentleman named John Tubman. My grandmother was first cousins with Harriet Tubman, which makes me third cousins or the technical term, first cousins twice removed from Harriet Tubman. And finding out that I was related, that my great grandfather and Harriet Tubman's father were brothers, really catapulted me into a sense of destiny into a sense of purpose. And so that's where the name of my podcast comes from, The Underground Subway, because it's a modern day of the railroad at which we are doing everything we can to lead people, to live a, a life of liberty and freedom and a happier life. 

And so finding out who I am, although it, it took a tremendous journey, it was worth it to me and the relationship that I had with my biological mom because I asked her, Why didn't you tell me this when I met you 30 years ago? And she said to me, I didn't real, I really didn't want you to have any ill feelings toward her. And I told her, It doesn't change how I feel about her, but it does change how I feel about you.

And so I immediately called two separate family members on the, on the adopted side and asked them their opinion of what happened. And both of them said, Oh, I believe every word of it. Because the word that she gave to the family was that she found you on the church step. I said, Wow. 

My daughter recalled the conversation that she heard with her and her sister one day, and the sister was telling her, You need to tell that boy the truth about what happened. And she told her sister, mind your business, he, he doesn't need to know anything. So it was validated on a lot of sides, but again, it really didn't make me bitter or angry toward my adopted mother at all. But it really opened up a lot love for my, myself and my biological mom. 

I remember the night that I met them for the first time. The only name that they knew of me was Edward, because that's my birth name, Edward. Well, when I went into the house that night to meet them, my sister walked over to me and said, Hey, Edward. Hey Eddie. It's so nice to meet you. And I told her my name is David. My name is not Edward. Well, the night that my mother, the last time I saw my biological mother before she passed away Christmas of last year, I was in the hospital with her, in the room with her, and she was, I could tell she was really at the end.

The end was near. And as I walked out of the room, we told each other that we loved each other. And I told her, I said, Well, hopefully I get to see you again real soon. And she said, Okay, I'll see you later, David. And at that point I turned around and I went back over to her. I looked at her and told her, "my name is Edward." and the peace that came over her is just unparallel. You know, I could just sense that closure for her and closure for me as well. 

That's my story and, and I'm not bitter, I'm not angry with anyone. I just use my story as fuel to, to others that no matter. What you, what you go through in life, whether you had a, because I went through something that I had no control over.

I went through being adopted. I went through being as an adopted child, being molested at 11 years old. I went through all of that and it was no wrongdoing on my part, but it was all a part of the plan of life for me. To be able to lead others, to help others, to rid themselves of all chains and baggage that they have in life. But no matter what is holding you back, you can survive and you can make it.

Heather Murphy: How has knowing your family history helped you to live your purpose in life?

David Alston: Because it gives me a foundation, it gives me a foundation of strength. It gives me, when I look at. The, one of the main things, the, the gentleman that that day at the family reunion asked, you know, I, he asked, I asked the question, why is it so important for us to know who we're related to?

And he said, You know, what you need to do is find certain qualities about Harriet Tubman. keep in mind, Harriet's dad and your great grandfather were brothers, but that also means that your great, great grandfather was the same man who was Harriet Tubman's grandfather. So whatever the blood that flows in her, flows in, you. Find some characteristics about her that you could say, This applies to me.

And so I started researching about her, outside of the fact that she hated being late for anything, which is me. I hate being late. I have to be on time. There was an old story, an old question about her as to whether or not she carried a, a weapon whether she carried a gun, and I found out that she did carry a gun and the reason she carried a gun was not so much for those that were coming after her, but for, that side of the family, the Rosses, I'm six two, but the Rosses were always a little short deep. They were very short, that side of the family. And so Harriet was a little small woman who would often lead men to freedom who were my size, 6 2, 6 3, 300 pound. Who often got tired who said, I'm not going another inch.

And when they got tired, Harriet would pull that gun out and say, Hold it. Yes you are. You didn't come this far to stop. And I said, You know, that's me. I have that passion in life for pulling out a spiritual gun, so to speak, to tell people, I don't care how tired you are, I don't care what life has thrown at you, you're not gonna stop.

You can make it. And so I really enjoy, it's something I enjoy so much. My passion is being able to talk to people and to push people and to, to motivate people and to see that light go off of people and say, Yes, I can make it. And that's what my family history has done for me.

Heather Murphy: I think that's amazing and, and what I hope listeners take from their family history to take those strengths from ancestors who have accomplished things or parallel things that they want to do in their lives, and use that strength and other characteristics to accomplish their purpose in life.

David Alston: Yes. And that, that's amazing because, you know, uh, you think about when, when a person thinks about Harriet Tubman and all that she did for others to, to offer a better life to others. sometimes I think, how will she feel knowing that all she's done for people, knowing all she's done to help people live a life of liberty and liberty. To live a life of liberty means to live without restraints, to be able to act, to think, to function without things holding you back. After all she'd done for others, how would she feel knowing that her little cousin, her little third cousin, was the one that gave up on life. And I can't do it and I can't sit by and watch others do it. So I and everyone else, we have a responsibility to carry that torch to find why am I here? What is my purpose? What is my purpose in life? Why did I survive being abducted? Why did I survive molestation? Why did I survive the embarrassment of being adopted or abducted? Why did I survive all of these things that I went through? There has to be a purpose, and when you find that purpose in life, you go for it, and you don't let anything stop you from achieving your purpose.

Heather Murphy: I think that is great advice and something that can make everybody's life a little bit better when they pursue that purpose and they gather strength from the generations that came before. If, if they're lacking a little bit on their own, that's something that they can pull up and rely on.

David Alston: Yes, and I, I end every one of my podcasts the same way. Each episode I always ended by saying, I need you to do me a favor tonight before you go to bed. I need you to find a mirror. Look yourself in the eye and ask yourself this question today. Did I do something to work toward my purpose or did I just waste another day? That's my motto.

Heather Murphy: That's a great motto to have. And so how can people can connect with you if they would like to? 

David Alston: Sure. Uh, the podcast website is www.theundergroundsubway.com. All of the podcast are on there. I can be reached on social media on Facebook at David Bright b r i g h t Alston. 

Heather Murphy: And I will have links to that in the show notes to make it a little bit easier for listeners. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your experience with me. 

David Alston: Thank you so much for having it. I loved sharing my story, especially knowing that it can just help one person. If it helps one person, then my story didn't happen for no reason.