S. Zainab Williams reflects on how books like The Seven Daughters of Dupree sparked her personal ancestry research.
S. Zainab Williams, an African American and diasporic Southeast Asian woman, describes how generational sagas led her to explore her family history through DNA testing and records on Ancestry.com. She traced one branch to Richard Middleton and Elvina Crafton, her third great-grandparents, and learned details about their enslavement in 1860 Edgefield, South Carolina. Williams also shares efforts to connect with her maternal Malaysian side, including tasks for her mother to interview her 90-year-old grandmother in Singapore about Yemeni and Malayalam roots. The essay notes her appreciation for novels such as Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson as inspirations for understanding migration and lost histories.