c.2025, Basic Books
\n$30
\n315 pages<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families<\/em><\/strong> by Judith Giesberg<\/p>\n c.2025, Simon & Schuster <\/p>\n Who do you think you are?<\/p>\n That\u2019s a question that can be taken a multiple of ways. It\u2019s in-your-face, aggressive, angry. Or it\u2019s inquisitive and open, asking for introspection. Where did your family come from, and who do you think you are? Or, as in these books, is that question to be answered?<\/p>\n For author Martha S. Jones,<\/strong> issues of identity were already understood: she\u2019d grown up knowing that there were Black ancestors in her lineage, full-stop. She never thought it was anything but obvious \u2013 until a college classmate questioned Jones\u2019 heritage.<\/p>\n In her book, The Trouble of Color<\/em><\/strong> (Basic Books, $30), Jones writes of untangling her truth.\u00a0 Color obviously mattered differently to Jones\u2019 three-times-great grandmother than it did for her parents. Color didn\u2019t draw a smooth line through history, it didn\u2019t stay in one place or even in one century. The story of living as someone of color weaved all along Jones\u2019 family tree, often revealing nuggets of pride, strength, and of surprise.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a journey inside this book that begs readers to go along \u2013 and you\u2019ll be glad you did. It takes you from city to country to find Jones\u2019 ancestors, and it\u2019s both comfortingly familiar and quite astounding. If you\u2019ve ever delved into your own heritage, had your DNA tested, or looked into your ancestry and discovered unexpected things, this is a book to read.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve done those things, then you know the delight you feel when you found someone who was lost \u2013 and you\u2019ll understand the heavy sadness and urgency inside the stories in Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families<\/em> by Judith Giesberg<\/strong> (Simon & Schuster, $29.99).<\/p>\n One of the most heinous practices of slave-owners in America was the separating of families. Children could, and were, sold away from their parents. Siblings were divided. Husbands and wives were sold apart, with no idea if or when they might see one another again. After Emancipation, it was common to see advertisements in newspapers, classified ads, editorials and posters in search of missing loved ones and separated relatives.<\/p>\n In this heart-wrenching, sometimes happy, always powerful book, Geisberg profiles a tiny handful of those stories. Once he found them, for instance, Tally Miller changed his surname so that no one could ever take his family away from him again. Hagar Outlaw struggled to find as many of her nine children <\/em>as she could, once she was freed. Time never stopped husbands from looking for their wives (or the other way around), or siblings from finding each other.<\/p>\n This book explodes the imagination, and it\u2019ll make you glad for the research methods we have at our disposal today. Readers who\u2019ve hit a dead-end on their own genealogical searches will want to read this important slice of devastating American history.<\/p>\n Of course, these books will make you want more, and you\u2019ll get it by heading for your favorite bookstore or library. There, you\u2019ll find what you need, and who maybe you think you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" c.2025, Basic Books $30 315 pages Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families by Judith Giesberg c.2025, Simon & Schuster $29.99 309 pages Who do you think you are? That\u2019s a question that can be taken a multiple of ways. It\u2019s in-your-face, aggressive, angry. Or it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[20],"class_list":["post-15613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15615,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15613\/revisions\/15615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15613"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=15613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n$29.99
\n309 pages<\/p>\n