Bill Sizemore spent eight years researching and writing the story of his slaveowning Virginia ancestors, their slaves, and the descendants of those slaves.

The author’s great-great-great-grandfather was a small-time tobacco farmer in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. In contrast to large planters with hundreds of slaves, he was far more typical: He owned fewer than 20. The book traces the lives of generations of African-Americans who descended from his slaves, up to the present day.