African American genealogy hinges on sparse, misspelled, undated records.

Evidence

Rich and Chris both understood the difficulties of doing African American genealogy—how you must go to obscure and often painful places to find clues to piece your history together. They knew that there was scant documentation, often misspelled, or not dated or poorly recorded. But they did not understand it in the way that Rose did. They knew there were dead ends—but their cautions could not prepare me for the painful despair or disappointment associated with this work. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 411

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth quantifying later: what share of antebellum enslaved persons appear in any contemporaneous written record at all?