>What a stunning document to uncover. An amazing gift that also hurts.

One of the things that has become poignant to me as I search for (and through) all manner of records, is the important function of memory.

I found that my family understood memory in a profound way, especially when I began to see naming patterns.

Some of my family members, for instance, have my gggg-grandmother's children's names that appeared in her testimony. No one remembered or even knew where the names came from, though, until people started up with genealogy.

I've found out that my past was speaking to me in ways that I didn't pay attention to or understand. I feel like because of my ancestor's experiences (pre/post/during slavery), they wanted to be remembered, and to say something about it.

It's easier to hear the past when you try to trace or discover memory, however faint and incomplete.

The people in the past are not the story in the history books or the story in the rhetoric about this country and Black culture. Their presence and energy is so real and so strong, even underneath all the silences that threaten to bury them.