Researching enslaved families is difficult because of the lack of name identification on pre-1870 census documents and in vital records, but such research is not an impossible task. African-American researchers must develop a unique set of strategies to uncover enslaved persons in non-census and non-vital records. Janis Minor Forté provides a ‘no nonsense’ approach to uncovering pre-emancipation documents that identify the slave holder, connect slave families, identify slave kin who died before emancipation and, reconstruct slave era families.