John Philip Colletta

After hearing a story from his grandmother about an ancestor who was murdered in Mississippi, the author spent decades researching the facts behind his great-great-grandfather Joseph Ring’s death in a Delta warehouse fire. Bodies of four of the five inhabitants of the warehouse that fateful night were recovered from the charred ruin. Only a few bones remained of Joseph Ring. While family history is the book’s primary purpose, the social, political, and geographical context is detailed show more and documented well enough to be useful to anyone interested in the local history of Vicksburg and the Delta region in the Reconstruction era. These are not my ancestors and I have no connection to the Delta, but I came to care about Joseph, his widow Barbara, and his brother George. show less

Good book, obviously dated by now but with enough immigration shipping details to make it still worth while.

Well written, this book offers a great insight into how to use genealogy to tie history and mystery into a compelling story. Colletta did a wonderful job of using a variety of sources to bring his family's oral history/lore to life. I picked up several ideas for how to flesh out sections of my own family's history.

Great resource for researchers. I loved how the author divided the book into sections: Before 1820 and After 1820.