Much of what this book suggests, as far as using history to better understand our ancestors’ lives, seemed basic to me because I was an historian before I was a genealogist. However, there are many genealogists who haven’t thought about, for example, looking at the laws that were in force in the time and place our ancestors’ lived and how these would have impacted their daily lives. These suggestions, and the helpful charts and checklists in the back, will surely enrich the research of many readers into their families’ history. I found the assessment of personality traits and skills to be a bit more dubious as such things are rather hard to qualify, but perhaps the thought processes the author suggests around these topics will be of use to some readers.

For me, the most interesting thing about the book was the history of the author’s own family, as she traces them from their [dna-discovered] West African homeland, through the years of slavery and how location influencd the kind of work their slavery entailed, and on through the post Civil War era and the twentieth century. None of my ancestors were African slaves, and none of them lived in the deep south, so much of this was new and fascinating for me.

So depending on where you are and what you research, this is either a helpful guide to genealogy or a fascinating work of family history. I’d have given it four stars if it had been slightly better edited.