Oh. My. Gosh. Ya'll. This book.
There are really two parts to genealogy research to me. One is the facts. When they were born, when they died, where they lived, who their people were, etc. The other is their story... how did those facts line up to create a life and what was that life like? How did the surrounding story of the area blend with their individual story to create a narrative of their lives? It is often really, really tough to pull a story out of the facts. John Turner and his wife Patience are one of those that are tougher than others.
John Turner was a person of color, and further, he was a former slave so there are virtually no records of his existence prior to his sale to his wife. Post sale, there are land records. He was a slave - and then he was a landowner, in the space of a few years. Squaring that with what I know of history creates this absolutely fascinating tale of how a family of color lived in the contradictory antebellum south.
A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas by Billy D. Higgins (affiliate link) takes the facts that can be found about the Turners, the Caulders and other families of color in the area, combines them with historical fact and weaves a narrative about their lives, following the sons of Moses Caulder and John Turner into military service together and their lives beyond.
