When Margaret Shelton-Gomez went to a family meeting in Detroit years ago, she barely knew half the people there. Intrigued by the strange faces, she felt compelled to find out who they were and where they all came from.

That was 1982. Now 20 years later, questions about her family’s history still linger in her mind.

Shelton-Gomez and her sister, Muriel Shelton-Green, have traveled 820 miles from Detroit to Selma in hopes of bringing to a close centuries worth of information.

Plantation records show the purchase of Shelton-Gomez’s relatives during the time when slaves were bought and sold, and now she seeks to reunite Smith Family heirs in Burnville, whose origins date back to 1817 on the Bat Smith plantation.

Finding this information has not been easy for Shelton-Gomez. Slaves were only identified by first names during the trade and acquired the last names of their plantation owner. She acknowledged the help of Marie McLaughlin, Bunny Gamble of the Selma-Dallas County Public Library, and Dr. Alston Fitts of the Fathers’ of St. Edmund for their help in retrieving the information.

For 10 years, Shelton-Gomez and McLaughlin have corresponded via mail and telephone reviewing documents retrieved by McLaughlin from the probate court of purchases made by Bat Smith, the owner of Shelton-Gomez’s relatives during slavery. Gamble and Fitts assisted in getting documentation pertaining to Shelton-Gomez’s search.

Names of other family members related to Shelton-Gomez living in the Dallas County area are: Thurman, Ervin-Smith, Callen and a Dorothy Mixon, a relative living on property in Plantersville.

She and her sister will be staying in Selma until Tuesday looking for Smith family members in hopes of making clear a foggy past.