One branch, followed all the way down
Every locked branch card on the family story page could open up exactly like this one, once the family behind it is ready. This one's mine.
Of Brooks and Melvenia's twelve children, Sybil is my great-grandmother — I'm her eldest great-granddaughter, through her son Anthony and down to me, my sisters, and our kids. Here's the part of that branch our family has chosen to share publicly.
The tenth of Brooks and Melvenia's twelve children, Sybil was moved to Nassau as a girl to finish her schooling. In her early twenties she met and married James Rodgers of Cat Island, a union that gave her two children — Anthony, whose own story follows this one, and Sharleen — before the marriage ended.
While visiting her brother Curtis in West Virginia, Sybil met Robert “Bob” Black. They married and had three more children together — Kenneth, Kevin, and Stephen — and built a life centered on their children, their land, and their table: tending livestock, preserving fruits and vegetables for the winter, and earning a reputation as two of the finest cooks among people who knew them.
In 1991, the cold West Virginia winters sent Sybil and Bob south to Florida, where she made her home until her death in 2001, remembered as fun-loving, compassionate, and genuinely sincere. Her Mass of the Resurrection was held on Saturday, 14 July 2001, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Hollywood, Florida.
Tony was born in Nassau on 28 August 1950, son of James Lloyd Rodgers of Cat Island and Sybil Sherman of Bimini. He and his sister Sharleen were raised on Deans Lane in Nassau, in a house full of cousins under the eye of “Mama” — Melvenia Sherman herself — before joining Sybil and her new family in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the fall of 1960.
He came of age in West Virginia during the era of school desegregation, a daily fight he met head-on while still excelling as a scholar and a three-sport athlete. He and his stepfather Bob built the family's own house in White Sulphur Springs by hand, dismantling another to raise it.
In 1968 he stayed behind in Freeport to finish high school, living with his aunt Olga Wilchcombe until he could support himself. There he met Marie McGhie; they married in December 1970. While still a student, Tony became one of the first Bahamians trained as a Syntex Chemical Operator — a role he had to convince both Syntex and the Bahamian government to open up in the first place.
He served in the US Army's Chemical Division from 1970 to 1972, stationed stateside and in Germany, then earned his B.S. in Chemistry at Fisk University in Nashville. Back at Syntex from 1978, he rose to Production Manager by his 1993 retirement.
That year he moved to Florida to be with Marie and their family, becoming — for the first time in his life — a hands-on grandfather to three girls, me among them: craft stores, soccer practice, Girl Scouts, and never once saying no. He kept a license as a Florida Realtor and never missed a game he could help it.
“What I like about Syntex is the very dynamic environment in which we work; this makes it imperative that a high level of professionalism be maintained by all; this is important for our business to remain competitive.”— Anthony Rodgers, Syntex newsletter
He passed peacefully in his sleep on 25 January 2025, after a long illness met with the same resolve he brought to everything else.
Sybil and Tony are shared publicly. Everyone after them is still living, so their names and photos stay behind the family sign-in.
Five generations, one family, from Bimini to here — and this is exactly the kind of thread your own family's site can follow too.
Sherman Family Reunion