Tracing African American Family History: A Practical Guide to Reconstructing Roots Through Records, Oral History, and DNA

Reclaim your family’s story with a practical, compassionate guide to researching African American roots. Drawing on field-tested methods and lived experience, Paul Crooks shows how to follow the clues your ancestors left behind — in households and community memory, in the margins of official records, and in the echoes preserved by history.

With clear steps and plain-English explanations, you’ll learn how to begin (or restart) your search with confidence, make sense of key U.S. record sets, and connect names, places, and timelines into a narrative that honours your people. Whether you’re brand new or picking up where others left off, this guide helps you turn curiosity into discovery.