Help all you good people in the know about the Mask family from North Carolina... My brother, Ty Burrell (yep, Phil Dunphy on Modern Family) and I are trying to corroborate information about the Mask/Mathews lineage that led to my great-great grandma Susanah Mask/Mathews Johnson Weeks [she came to Oregon after changing her name to Mathews from Mask, along with children and a couple brother Masks, who also changed their name to Mathews... John Drury and/or a John Dudley...]
My brother has approached the tv genealogy shows to spotlight our family and they are very interested, as very few 'white' celebrities are as excited about their African American past as Ty is... Penelope's mom [co-parent with and slave to Drusilla Raiford's husband Mask, if the other trees here are correct] is listed as: Young Slave girl from Madagascar)

I can't seem to find much to confirm Drusilla Raiford as Dudley Bryon Mask's wife either, nor really corroborating info about him being the correct Mask man,(?...ha)the true father to Susanah... 'they' have his dad listed as a John Mask and his white wife as dying in 1700, before Dudley is born...
Her [Susanah's, and our ancestor's] mother is Penelope (Elender/Ellendar? Mask/Mathews) and according to most family trees here, she was both sister and co-parent with Dudley Bryon Mask to Susanah. Again, I can't find confirmation of this and really need better evidence. The birthdates and such for the Mask line before Dudley Bryon Mask are so conflicting. I don't even have a really solid connection to Penelope from him except that she has more than one son with Dudley in his name somewhere - the Bryon seems specific to him and I originally included it on my tree because I found it in another... arrgh! help me out of the weak branches and get us back to our roots, please!! As best I can tell, Penelope Elender Mask in a free mulatto woman in 1850(about 50 years old then) living as Elender Mathews with her son John Dudley Mathews(yes changed from Mask) and several other children, including John's with Elizabeth Wooley - don't know when they changed it... nor when they were deemed free.
We would appreciate any and all info you may have, please... and anything we receive as a result of the television project we will happily pass on back to you.
Thanks again,
Reagan