According to the PBS program on The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families, The Van Salee Family, Jan was a Dutch seafarer who had “turn Turk” and become an admiral in the Moroccan navy. There are old English sea shanties sung about the Salee Rovers. The mother of his two sons was probably a concubine he had while trading in this part of the world before his conversion to Islam.

This fact is consistent with the DNA result which shows a very small percentage of Senegalese in one of our relatives.

©2016 Nancy Ratay