Enslaved descendants must trace slaveholder families to recover their own genealogy

Evidence

The irony of having to look for my broken family by finding the still-intact families who once enslaved them was incredibly painful. It was also necessary. I needed them so I could begin piecing my family back together—to learn how my great-grandfather Renty Taylor Thompson wound up in Alabama. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 393

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Speaks directly to the reader’s stated goal of following how archives designed to prevent genealogical reconstruction force descendants to work through the slaveholder’s intact family line.