from Black Genealogy, by Charles L. Blockson

Black genealogy is the ultimate puzzle, an adventurous journey through a very personal history. For that reason alone, it's probably infinitely more rewarding if you decide to "do it yourself." Each puzzle, insignificant by itself, takes on an added meaning as part of the emerging whole. The "parts," in this case, are the genealogical chart you're going of learn to construct, tracing your family from you father and mother, through their fathers and mothers and so on, as far back into history as you can go. But the sum of your search can be far greater tan the parts alone.