03408cam a2200349 i 4500 1842506957 TxAuBib 20250219120000.0 241002s2025||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2024030632 9781982174323 HRD 29.99 1982174323 HRD 29.99 TxAuBib rda Giesberg, Judith Ann, 1966-, author. Last seen [BOOK] : the enduring search by formerly enslaved people to find their lost families / Judith Giesberg. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2025. xxv, 309 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. Patience and Clara Bashop -- The children of Hagar Outlaw -- Both of Tally Miller's children -- I was the boy -- The Andersons of Mineola, Texas -- Looking for Lias -- Emeline and Julia -- Henry Saffold's chain of evidence -- Husbands and wives -- Diana Johnson's hope. "Of all the many horrors of slavery, the cruelest was the separation of families in slave auctions. Spouses and siblings were sold away from one other. Young children were separated from their mothers. Fathers were sent down river and never saw their families again. As soon as slavery ended in 1865, family members began to search for one another, in some cases persisting until as late as the 1920s. They took out “information wanted” advertisements in newspapers and sent letters to the editor. Pastors in churches across the country read these advertisements from the pulpit, expanding the search to those who had never learned to read or who did not have access to newspapers. These documents demonstrate that even as most white Americans—and even some younger Black Americans, too—wanted to put slavery in the past, many former slaves, members of the “Freedom Generation,” continued for years, and even decades, to search for one another. These letters and advertisements are testaments to formerly enslaved people’s enduring love for the families they lost in slavery, yet they spent many years buried in the storage of local historical societies or on microfilm reels that time forgot. Judith Giesberg draws on the archive that she founded—containing almost five thousand letters and advertisements placed by members of the Freedom Generation—to compile these stories in a narrative form for the first time. Her in-depth research turned up additional information about the writers, their families, and their enslavers. With this critical context, she recounts the moving stories of the people who placed the advertisements, the loved ones they tried to find, and the outcome of their quests to reunite.". 20250219. Freed persons United States Biography. Freed persons Family relationships United States History. Enslaved persons Family relationships United States History. African American families History 19th century. Family reunification United States History 19th century. African Americans History 1863-1877.