Enslaved families reused names to help separated kin find each other.

Evidence

As I continued to study this document, I recalled the naming traditions and heard my mother’s voice in memories: “Black folk gave everyone the same name because families were so often violently separated during slavery,” she often said. “This was how kinfolk could keep track and later find one another.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 363

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the genealogy-reconstruction theme central to this book’s method and to African American naming practices as covert resistance.