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Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families
Drawing from an archive of nearly five thousand letters and advertisements, the riveting, dramatic story of formerly enslaved people who spent years searching for family members stolen away during slavery.
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.
This story underscores the cruelest horror of slavery—the forced breakup of families—and the resilience and determination of the formerly enslaved. Thoughtful, heart-wrenching, and illuminating, Last Seen finally gives this lesser-known aspect of slavery the attention it deserves.
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.
This story underscores the cruelest horror of slavery—the forced breakup of families—and the resilience and determination of the formerly enslaved. Thoughtful, heart-wrenching, and illuminating, Last Seen finally gives this lesser-known aspect of slavery the attention it deserves.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published February 4, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
January 30, 2025
Judith Giesburg’s book, Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families, is more than what the subtitle promises. Each chapter of this book centers on what the author and the Last Seen Project know about formerly enslaved people and their descendants who used newspaper advertisements but also discusses the lives of Black people before, during, and after the American Civil War. It is one of the best books I’ve read about the Reconstruction period because of its breadth and because of the author’s compassion for the people we may only know because of these advertisements. As of today, there are 4,719 ads in the Last Seen collection online. Their goal is 5,000. I will always wonder how many of these ads resulted in a reunion...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
February 13, 2025
I love Ashlie and her audio messages, thank you <3 This one wasn’t so much my favourite… it has interesting history about formerly enslaved people searching for their lost families, but I felt it didn’t have enough of a story to keep me fully engaged ://
May 2, 2025
The book sheds light on the brutal history of the Freedom Generation, and is overall a solid academic read. I am admittedly biased as I know someone who worked on the Last Seen Project, but the content of Dr. Giesberg’s work is a piece of American history that should be read and shared.
February 13, 2025
Thank you to Simon Books, especially Tyanni Niles, for this free copy in exchange for an honest review! It was truly an honor for you to reach out and ask if Last Seen would be a fit for my platform.
This history of formally enslaved people searching for family members will forever be engrained in my brain. These stories always move me to tears, and I will forever do whatever is in my power to prevent history repeating itself.
“We can try but we will fail to understand Elizabeth Williams’s pain in losing her children. I wasn’t sure this was my book to write. But I do know that it was important to try, because if we don’t try to see history through her eyes, we will be doomed to continue repeating it.”
The only critique I have on this history is that is was so jumbled at time that I had a hard time remembering who I was reading about.
This history of formally enslaved people searching for family members will forever be engrained in my brain. These stories always move me to tears, and I will forever do whatever is in my power to prevent history repeating itself.
“We can try but we will fail to understand Elizabeth Williams’s pain in losing her children. I wasn’t sure this was my book to write. But I do know that it was important to try, because if we don’t try to see history through her eyes, we will be doomed to continue repeating it.”
The only critique I have on this history is that is was so jumbled at time that I had a hard time remembering who I was reading about.
December 27, 2024
Fascinating history—several accounts from newspapers of newly freed people’s attempts to find relatives who were sold away from them. I wish I had this for the classroom. A must read, especially if you’re a history lover.
Special thanks to Simon & Schuster for sending me a complimentary copy of this book!
Special thanks to Simon & Schuster for sending me a complimentary copy of this book!
March 19, 2025
I read this while on a flight and boy, did I have tumultuous emotions after reading this.
I deeply appreciate the amount of work the author and her team has done to put together the contents of this book. It feels like a brief peek into the minds and lives of enslaved persons during the peak of legal slavery (how contradictory) and after slavery was abolished.
However, the content was not written in a way that had adequate and continuous storytelling. The disjointedness actually had me contemplating multiple times whether I should drop the book. It was way too dry with far too little analysis on the socioeconomic and psychological consequences of the impact of slavery on individuals and extended family members.
I deeply appreciate the amount of work the author and her team has done to put together the contents of this book. It feels like a brief peek into the minds and lives of enslaved persons during the peak of legal slavery (how contradictory) and after slavery was abolished.
However, the content was not written in a way that had adequate and continuous storytelling. The disjointedness actually had me contemplating multiple times whether I should drop the book. It was way too dry with far too little analysis on the socioeconomic and psychological consequences of the impact of slavery on individuals and extended family members.
August 6, 2025
Although I did learn some from this book, I’m not sure if there was enough material for this to have been made into a book. The author conjectured a lot and repeated information as if the reader had no memory of reading it a few pages earlier.
It’s a part of a noble, interesting project, but not worthy of a book. At least, in the way it was presented.
It’s a part of a noble, interesting project, but not worthy of a book. At least, in the way it was presented.
May 5, 2025
Audiobook: 4/5
Physical Book/ Overall: 3.5/5
Physical Book/ Overall: 3.5/5
February 24, 2025
While the context regarding the content was undoubtedly invaluable and necessary, its scattered injection throughout each chapter I felt detracted from the stories the author was intending to highlight and give voice to. Also, some statements or elaborations throughout, both on behalf of enslavers and the freedmen and women, seemed frequently speculative and I felt was often a disservice to the histories that were being told.
All that being said; however, the author's expertise and larger contextual and human understanding are clear and this work stands as an important project and recognition of the inherent humanity that was denied to enslaved individuals, kin, and their descendants that is still too often smothered away from the light even today.
All that being said; however, the author's expertise and larger contextual and human understanding are clear and this work stands as an important project and recognition of the inherent humanity that was denied to enslaved individuals, kin, and their descendants that is still too often smothered away from the light even today.
November 16, 2024
Family is a bedrock of human civilization. After all, it’s where we first learn to care for ourselves, work for others, and socialize among each other. However, life is not always easy on families, and many eventually separate as time proceeds. Separation often takes a heavy toll. For those who suffered under slavery, dehumanizing conditions continually forced separations among spouses, parents, and children. On top of that, the Civil War caused a social upheaval that’s tragically normal for war zones. After freedom was granted, stability was hard to come by, and the end of Reconstruction only made matters worse.
In the antebellum American south, whites casually cast aside black pain by surmising that blacks did not develop deep familial bonds. Indeed, even today, one can hear similar sentiments casually made about the “weak” nature of black families. Judith Giesberg seeks to correct this mistaken sentiment by providing enthralling historical examples of how many blacks sought husbands, wives, parents, and children through newspaper ads for up to 50 years after emancipation.
The ads that Giesberg bases this book on are relatively short – a few sentences each. This book displays them at the start of each chapter, and readers can be excused if they find them unimpressive. Yet Giesberg plumbs them to an extraordinarily deep level. She finds other mentions of the seekers in the historical record; she empathetically explores the social bonds that drove people towards freedom decades after emancipation; and she provides historical context on both local and national levels to instruct. She weaves these approaches into a tapestry that realistically portrays the hardships of new freedom among a vindictive class of former white “masters.” She shows the deeply human longing and resiliency that undergird these queries.
Although Giesberg seems to extract all that exists about each of these brief narratives, high levels of detail often trump moving the plot along. That is, it reads like an academic history more than a gripping tale. This book could have benefitted from more of a central storyline. As it stands, it’s more of an anthology around a common theme and structure. The historical analyses are excellent, and she certainly enlivened my imagination about how enslavement oppressed many lives – and oppresses us still today. The stories of how much this “Freedom Generation” overcame will inspire readers for decades to come.
In the antebellum American south, whites casually cast aside black pain by surmising that blacks did not develop deep familial bonds. Indeed, even today, one can hear similar sentiments casually made about the “weak” nature of black families. Judith Giesberg seeks to correct this mistaken sentiment by providing enthralling historical examples of how many blacks sought husbands, wives, parents, and children through newspaper ads for up to 50 years after emancipation.
The ads that Giesberg bases this book on are relatively short – a few sentences each. This book displays them at the start of each chapter, and readers can be excused if they find them unimpressive. Yet Giesberg plumbs them to an extraordinarily deep level. She finds other mentions of the seekers in the historical record; she empathetically explores the social bonds that drove people towards freedom decades after emancipation; and she provides historical context on both local and national levels to instruct. She weaves these approaches into a tapestry that realistically portrays the hardships of new freedom among a vindictive class of former white “masters.” She shows the deeply human longing and resiliency that undergird these queries.
Although Giesberg seems to extract all that exists about each of these brief narratives, high levels of detail often trump moving the plot along. That is, it reads like an academic history more than a gripping tale. This book could have benefitted from more of a central storyline. As it stands, it’s more of an anthology around a common theme and structure. The historical analyses are excellent, and she certainly enlivened my imagination about how enslavement oppressed many lives – and oppresses us still today. The stories of how much this “Freedom Generation” overcame will inspire readers for decades to come.
December 14, 2025
This was an important book, but hard to read.excellent research
March 22, 2025
This is the nonfiction book I was hoping someone would write after I read Lisa Wingate's novel, The Book of Lost Friends. After emancipation (and sometimes before it), freed men and women placed advertisements in newspapers, trying to find family members who had been sold away South or otherwise separated from them during slavery and the Civil War. This was such a cruel practice, separating families for money as though their relationships meant nothing. The trip further South from Virginia and the Carolinas to the "Cotton Kingdoms" of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and west as far as Texas (where many enslavers hoped to escape the Union Army and emancipation of their slaves) was so grueling and the labor in the cotton plantations so arduous that few survived it, even though only healthy young adults were chosen for this tortuous journey and work--this migration is known as the "Second Middle Passage," the first having been the horrific and often fatal journeys in slave ships across the Atlantic from Africa.
This is not a cheery book--very seldom were successful reunions of lost family members recorded and when they were, they tended to whitewash (word chosen intentionally) the suffering that enslaved and freed people went through. Further, the freed people endured much to survive to freedom and afterward, due to continuing racism, Jim Crow, poverty, and violence against them. Nevertheless, this book is worth reading as a witness to what many individuals and families went through and it is well-written; the e-book allows the reader to enlarge the columns at the beginning of each chapter that are the original advertisements placed by those searching for their families. An important book that dispels myths created by the "Lost Cause" attempts to whitewash American history.
This is not a cheery book--very seldom were successful reunions of lost family members recorded and when they were, they tended to whitewash (word chosen intentionally) the suffering that enslaved and freed people went through. Further, the freed people endured much to survive to freedom and afterward, due to continuing racism, Jim Crow, poverty, and violence against them. Nevertheless, this book is worth reading as a witness to what many individuals and families went through and it is well-written; the e-book allows the reader to enlarge the columns at the beginning of each chapter that are the original advertisements placed by those searching for their families. An important book that dispels myths created by the "Lost Cause" attempts to whitewash American history.
January 30, 2025
Emancipation brought many joys and many troubles. Imagine beginning a life as a free person with no idea of what had happened to your family. The mother or father, children, or spouse who had been divided from you, sold in the domestic slave trade. Names were changed with one’s owner. Perhaps a loved one had been sold several times. With no power or money, how could one find the missing?
In her research Judith Giesberg noted newspaper advertisements placed by freedmen seeking information about lost family members. She collected over 4,000 of these ads and created the Last Seen website where people can search for their ancestors. Her new book shares the stories behind ten of the historical ads.
Her exhaustive research unearthed information about the people who placed the ads, the enslavers who owned the family, and insights into their life and world.
It is a brutal book to read, each advertisement heartbreaking, Giesberg’s insights crushing. She notes that when the Civil War began, there were nearly a million enslaved children, with tens of thousands separated from their parents. Husbands and wives searched for each other, but sometimes a second spouse was already in the picture. Elderly hoped to find lost children, and children parents they barely remembered.
The stories are presented in a scholarly way, with historical interpretation in the greater context of the legacy of slavery, not sensationalizing the horrors, but the horror is hard to escape.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through LibraryThing’s Early Reader Program.
Learn more at the Last Seen Project where you can find databases, teaching plans, and contemporary success stories https://informationwanted.org/
In her research Judith Giesberg noted newspaper advertisements placed by freedmen seeking information about lost family members. She collected over 4,000 of these ads and created the Last Seen website where people can search for their ancestors. Her new book shares the stories behind ten of the historical ads.
Her exhaustive research unearthed information about the people who placed the ads, the enslavers who owned the family, and insights into their life and world.
It is a brutal book to read, each advertisement heartbreaking, Giesberg’s insights crushing. She notes that when the Civil War began, there were nearly a million enslaved children, with tens of thousands separated from their parents. Husbands and wives searched for each other, but sometimes a second spouse was already in the picture. Elderly hoped to find lost children, and children parents they barely remembered.
The stories are presented in a scholarly way, with historical interpretation in the greater context of the legacy of slavery, not sensationalizing the horrors, but the horror is hard to escape.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through LibraryThing’s Early Reader Program.
Learn more at the Last Seen Project where you can find databases, teaching plans, and contemporary success stories https://informationwanted.org/
April 1, 2025
Last Seen is a book stemming from the Last Seen project, which collects newspaper advertisements from formerly enslaved people in the years after the Civil War. These people were looking for lost family members, and occasionally friends and fellow war veterans.
Giesberg notes that the overwhelming question people have after engaging with the Last Seen project is whether the advertisers ever found the loved ones they were looking for. This book traces eight advertisers and uses their stories to paint a picture of post Civil War life for formerly enslaved people, and their quests to reunite with loved ones and to reconstitute and build their families in this new, complex postwar land.
There is still a lot of ambiguity here. We know of a few reunions, but it was expensive to advertise in newspapers, so few would have placed a second advertisement to let readers know they had found their family members. And both slavery and the Civil War resulted in mass death and displacement, along with the fact that many of the seekers were either extremely young when separated from their loved ones (so remembering specific details might be difficult) or looking for extremely young relatives (who might have succumbed to childhood mortality or forgotten their family members). The book is more about the search than the finding (although there are some joyous reunions).
This is a well-researched and important book, well told. Yes, one longs for more knowledge about each family portrayed - but Giesberg gives all we know.
Giesberg notes that the overwhelming question people have after engaging with the Last Seen project is whether the advertisers ever found the loved ones they were looking for. This book traces eight advertisers and uses their stories to paint a picture of post Civil War life for formerly enslaved people, and their quests to reunite with loved ones and to reconstitute and build their families in this new, complex postwar land.
There is still a lot of ambiguity here. We know of a few reunions, but it was expensive to advertise in newspapers, so few would have placed a second advertisement to let readers know they had found their family members. And both slavery and the Civil War resulted in mass death and displacement, along with the fact that many of the seekers were either extremely young when separated from their loved ones (so remembering specific details might be difficult) or looking for extremely young relatives (who might have succumbed to childhood mortality or forgotten their family members). The book is more about the search than the finding (although there are some joyous reunions).
This is a well-researched and important book, well told. Yes, one longs for more knowledge about each family portrayed - but Giesberg gives all we know.
August 1, 2024
I am reading a review copy of this now.
So far it is amazing (and sad). I'm pretty sure this is going to become a bestseller along the lines of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. While it may seem odd to compare this to popsci/medical books, Last Seen has the same combination of weighty and emotional topic of widespread interest, very skillfully done technical writing, and elegant, plain, and sensitive prose.
Coming in February 2025. Check it out.
So far it is amazing (and sad). I'm pretty sure this is going to become a bestseller along the lines of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. While it may seem odd to compare this to popsci/medical books, Last Seen has the same combination of weighty and emotional topic of widespread interest, very skillfully done technical writing, and elegant, plain, and sensitive prose.
Coming in February 2025. Check it out.
February 26, 2025
Thank you @simonandschuster for the #gifted book.
Have you ever run a classified advertisement? OR What are you reading? I have run them for yard sales in the past and I believe my wedding was announced in the newspaper. I can not imagine trying to find a close relative as in Last Seen: The Enduring Search h by Formerly Enslaved People to Find their Lost Families by Judith Giesberg.
This is a fascinating, heartbreaking, and very interesting historical book. I was drawn into the stories of former slaves searching for their families. I appreciated the research the author did to help the stories come to life, and connect them with the reader. For me the book made history become much more personal. It is one thing to know that black families were separated from each other, but reading their advertisements to find their relatives and the context the author provided gave me a new perspective.
This is a book I would recommend reading in small doses. It seems easier to understand that way. I recommend Last Seen by Judith Giesberg.
I was given a complimentary copy and not required to write a positive review.
Have you ever run a classified advertisement? OR What are you reading? I have run them for yard sales in the past and I believe my wedding was announced in the newspaper. I can not imagine trying to find a close relative as in Last Seen: The Enduring Search h by Formerly Enslaved People to Find their Lost Families by Judith Giesberg.
This is a fascinating, heartbreaking, and very interesting historical book. I was drawn into the stories of former slaves searching for their families. I appreciated the research the author did to help the stories come to life, and connect them with the reader. For me the book made history become much more personal. It is one thing to know that black families were separated from each other, but reading their advertisements to find their relatives and the context the author provided gave me a new perspective.
This is a book I would recommend reading in small doses. It seems easier to understand that way. I recommend Last Seen by Judith Giesberg.
I was given a complimentary copy and not required to write a positive review.
December 22, 2025
Last Seen is about an extremely sad and cruel time in US history. It's a reminder of how slavery separated families. What was surprising to me was how many former slaves attempted to find their lost relatives. They placed adds asking if anyone had knowledge of their loved ones. Some of those adds were successful and the former slaves were reunited with family members; others were not that lucky.
The author and others spent a lot of time digging up these advertisements asking for help in finding their family members. The adds were asking if anyone had seen parents, their siblings, and even children. I commend them for finding these ads and for making us aware of their existence. Unfortunately, the stories blended together and often sounded exactly the same as others. Plus, there was little information about who successfully found their relatives and how they related to each other once they were found.
Although I appreciate the difficulty of finding these advertisements, there just wasn't enough story to go with them to make it worthy of an entire book.
The author and others spent a lot of time digging up these advertisements asking for help in finding their family members. The adds were asking if anyone had seen parents, their siblings, and even children. I commend them for finding these ads and for making us aware of their existence. Unfortunately, the stories blended together and often sounded exactly the same as others. Plus, there was little information about who successfully found their relatives and how they related to each other once they were found.
Although I appreciate the difficulty of finding these advertisements, there just wasn't enough story to go with them to make it worthy of an entire book.
July 9, 2025
The idea behind the “Last Seen Project” is really interesting to me. The organization has archived and digitized nearly 5,000 newspaper ads from 1865-1925 taken out by formerly enslaved people looking for their loved ones.
Judith Giesberg’s book Last Seen selects a few of these ads and tells the stories behind them. Some are parents looking for lost children, some children looking for lost parents, and some are spouses looking for their spouses. Of these nearly 5,000 ads, only about 2% actually found their loved ones.
Though the premise is a great one, the execution is a bit . . . dry. Some scholars find a way to tell history in such a narratized and interesting way. Giesberg, in this book, however does not. After a few chapters it felt incredibly repetitive.
Judith Giesberg’s book Last Seen selects a few of these ads and tells the stories behind them. Some are parents looking for lost children, some children looking for lost parents, and some are spouses looking for their spouses. Of these nearly 5,000 ads, only about 2% actually found their loved ones.
Though the premise is a great one, the execution is a bit . . . dry. Some scholars find a way to tell history in such a narratized and interesting way. Giesberg, in this book, however does not. After a few chapters it felt incredibly repetitive.
March 6, 2025
I mean, this book would have been powerful if it were only the newspaper clippings alone. (And the related project, The Last Seen Project, is exactly that.) For me, this book just really hit in a way I had never considered. What about those families that were separated because their “owners”
split them up? I didn’t ever realize or consider this “Freedom Generation.” Chapter 6, Looking for Lias, was so sharp for me because it was set around where I grew up in Northern Virginia, causing me to have so many more questions. The writing itself was a little tough for me because it did seem a little meandering. But there was so much in there. Recommend.
split them up? I didn’t ever realize or consider this “Freedom Generation.” Chapter 6, Looking for Lias, was so sharp for me because it was set around where I grew up in Northern Virginia, causing me to have so many more questions. The writing itself was a little tough for me because it did seem a little meandering. But there was so much in there. Recommend.
April 14, 2025
3.5 stars
I anticipated that this book would exclusively cover the reconstruction period as freed slaves endeavored to search/find their family members. Much of this book focused on the antebellum period, which didn’t seem to be the scope of this book. It also jumped around geographically from chapter to chapter and would sometimes revisit people and places from earlier chapters. There were parts of this book that were on message, and those were the ones I appreciated the most. I’m left feeling that either the title needed to be different or else the author and editor should have kept the subject matter on point.
*Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley
I anticipated that this book would exclusively cover the reconstruction period as freed slaves endeavored to search/find their family members. Much of this book focused on the antebellum period, which didn’t seem to be the scope of this book. It also jumped around geographically from chapter to chapter and would sometimes revisit people and places from earlier chapters. There were parts of this book that were on message, and those were the ones I appreciated the most. I’m left feeling that either the title needed to be different or else the author and editor should have kept the subject matter on point.
*Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley
October 22, 2025
A dificult book to read. After the US Civil War thousands of former slaves tried to find the family members who had been taken from them by slavers. This search did not end for many until the end of their lives. Most were not successful, according to author Judith Giesberg only perhaps two percent of people using newspaper ads to find lost relatives ended in with a reunion. The evils of slavery and racism are well documented in this book. Recently a prominent American politician complained that museums only told h0w bad slavery was. Did he really think that there were two sides to that story?
March 6, 2025
Last Seen is a fascinating look at the aftermath of emancipation--a perspective not often studied or noticed. How did the freed people try to find their relatives sold or traded away from them, and how often were they successful in finding them? The author also includes a great deal of necessary information about life in different parts of the US in the pre- and post-Civil War era that add to the understanding of the reader as to the experiences of these individuals. Absolutely fascinating, and shattering at the same time.
Read
May 6, 2025 A thoughtful book that follows the story of several former enslaved people who took out ads in an attempt to find long lost family members. The author put a lot of research into the book to provide background, sometimes too much. The individual stories sometimes get swamped by the context setting. Some stories were successful but others were unable to learn any news.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Simon and Schuster for the advance copy.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Simon and Schuster for the advance copy.
May 28, 2025
3.8 stars! Last Seen is powerful and necessary. It’s the excavation of freed slaves’ search for their loved ones, often decades after Emancipation. Another in a long line of wrenching stories of dehumanization and marginalization and suffering. The long arms of slavery didn’t recede after the Civil War. We are still living with the effects today in the fractured ancestry of people. The prevailing story is one of hope and faith; that despite distance and time, we might still find family.
June 25, 2025
Judith Giesberg created an online archive of advertisements that were placed in newspapers by former slaves who were freed during the American Civil War to attempt to find their relatives who were separated by the brutality of slavery. By describing the accounts and results of many of these ads it enlightens readers on the phenomenon and this incredibly value tool for both historians and genealogists.
July 8, 2025
I couldn't finish it. The idea of telling the stories of separated families trying to find each other after the Civil War is an excellent one. But the author spends way too much time trashing white people of the past and less time talking about the actual people. Of course, there isn't much to know about the ones chosen to be included, so there's a lot of "extra" material. It's factual but shrilly told.
September 28, 2025
What a great book! After hearing Mrs. Geisburg speak about this book and her research process at the Clara Barton Missing Soldier’s Office, I knew I had to read it. It’s no secret that families were torn apart in the second middle passage during American slavery - but hearing how families at least attempted to find one another only further highlights to hope and resiliency embodied by the Freedom Generation. For anyone who is a history buff, I can’t recommend this book enough.
March 7, 2025
I have read several fiction books that feature the letters mentioned in this book, as well as a few non-fiction works about the search for them. Judith Giesburg did an incredible job capturing these stories—she truly blew my mind. This book is excellently written and showcases her storytelling abilities. It captures so much and has inspired me to learn even more. I highly recommend it.
March 10, 2025
Interesting stories, but little to no transitions between stories besides for the occasional change of chapter, which was not enough. All the stories seemed to blend together, which left me a little confused. I felt as some stories were repetitive even though they were technically all different. I was somehow still interested in this book.
April 11, 2025
A must told story detailing the separation of enslaved families and their search to reunite them again. I learned about the Freedom Generation through this book. This is a must read for learning about American history.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews