Oral family memory of enslaved ancestors halts at the slavery line

Evidence

“My roots grow deeper than slave times,” this book begins. “Yet it is almost impossible to go further than the lonely, tough times of slavery. Regrettably, I can only tell you as far as my great-grandfather, Fred Thompson.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 59

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did the family line grow traceable only from Fred Thompson? The archival gap that slavery created is precisely what the book must later reconstruct against.
• SEED: The phrase ‘my roots grow deeper than slave times, yet it is almost impossible to go further’ is a strong epigraphic-agnostic framing for an essay on genealogical erasure.