(CNN) -- Anita Davenport's curiosity about her family's past began with the photographs that surrounded her. She said she wanted to know the stories behind the images of her parents and uncles. 

Anita Davenport's grandfather, Walter, was stationed in Battle Creek, Michigan, during World War I. 

The stories she found -- and shared during several phone conversations from her home in Culver City, California -- parallel the African-American journey during the past century. 

The search took her to 1894, when her grandfather, Walter, was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia. 

Walter Davenport moved to Wedowee, Alabama. During World War I, Davenport was stationed at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan, Anita said. 

Thousands of other African-Americans were also on the move, mainly to the Northeast and the Midwest, eager for opportunities related to the war and industrialization, according to Howard Dodson, a historian and the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 

Walter Davenport later returned to Alabama, married and had nine children, one of whom was Anita's father, Frank. 

Walter was fond of Battle Creek and regaled his family with stories, Anita said. The stories must have been convincing. The eldest of his nine children, also named Walter, moved north to Battle Creek in 1951. 

Frank Davenport, Anita's father, later joined his older brother in Michigan. Anita was born in Battle Creek. 

Between 1940 and 1970, more than 5 million African-Americans left the South, migrating to cities like Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan, and New York. 
What year was he born?
e search took her to 1894, when her grandfather, Walter, was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia. 