Traces the author's thirty-year research into his slave ancestry, describing the history of the massive tobacco plantation where his ancestors worked and his family's extensive genealogical legacy.

Everyone tracing a family's history faces a dilemma. We strive to reconstruct relationships and lives of people we cannot see, but if we cannot see them, how do we know we have portrayed them accurately? The genealogical proof standard aims to help researchers, students, and new family historians address this dilemma and apply respected standards for acceptable conclusions.

This textbook teaches the principles of genealogical documentation. There are exercises at the end of each chapter with answers at the back of the book.