Oral testimony holds a contentious place in historical scholarship of the United States. While many approach such source material with a degree of scepticism, the limited firsthand testimony of African Americans, particularly during slavery, renders engagement with these sources essential. Daisy Turner's Kin, authored by esteemed folklorist Jane Beck, explores the potential of oral testimony to contribute to our understanding of both history and memory through the reconstruction of the remarkable story of the Turner family.

The Turner family's story is expansive. Beginning with Daisy Turner's grandfather's birth in West Africa in the nineteenth century, the family saga is told by Daisy herself, aged one hundred years old when first interviewed by Beck in Vermont, in 1983. Daisy was well aware that “proving” her multigenerational family history required evidence. Beck has, in many instances, provided this evidence. Daisy Turner's Kin is a truly remarkable feat of scholarship; it is the outcome of decades of research to both verify and enrich the Turner family story through an extensive range of sources, from DNA evidence, to photographs, to slave ship records. Beck's undertaking goes far beyond the fastidious corroboration of an oral narrative, though. She explores her own process of building the Turner story; her experiences meeting members of the Turner family, her research, and where its limits lie. Daisy Turner's Kin explores the very construction of “memory”; how memories are created, what they mean to those who carry them, and the contribution they can make to our understanding of the past (and indeed the present).

Beck begins the Turner's family saga at its origin. Daisy's grandfather, Alessi, was Yoruba, captured in the early nineteenth century and transported by a probably piratical journey into the US. Alessi ‘becomes’ Robert Berkeley, a prize-fighting slave, enslaved on the Gouldin plantation in eastern Virginia. It is here where Daisy's own father, Alec, was born in 1845. With Alec, the Turners’ story comes to life. Beck relates Alec's childhood, giving a detailed and rich picture of life on a plantation; from the working lives of enslaved people, to culture, resistance, childhood, and community. Daisy Turner's Kin then follows Alec's life through the Civil War, and Alec's experience gives fascinating insight into the “unofficial” roles of African Americans in the Civil War. Indeed, it was recognition for Alec's own service that would remain on Daisy's mind until her death. The narrative centres upon such “touchstone” stories: pivotal personal memories passed through the generations.

Alec, newly freed, then endeavours to find work in the North. He begins cleaning latrines, and by 1886 Alec is a landowner and a homeowner, married with children. Beck follows Alec and his wife, Sally, through their lives in a community of quarry workers in Bangor to their eventual settling in Grafton, Vermont, in their home poignantly named Journey's End. The setbacks and successes of Alec and his family are compelling, and the Turners’ story illuminates many of the challenges and opportunities formerly enslaved people found in their attempts to survive and thrive in the North.

Beck then relates the lives of Daisy and her siblings, through Daisy's own “touchstone” stories. Family anecdotes and memories, stories and sayings, make this a heartfelt and rich narrative of family life. Throughout, Beck succeeds in contextualizing the family history more broadly, whether this is simply the way of life in the town where Alec and his family were living, or the nature of the slave trade at the time it was likely Daisy's grandfather was transported to the US.

From Grafton, the many Turner children gradually leave to the allure of Boston, and later to marry. It is Daisy who becomes the centre of the Turner family after Alec and Sally's deaths. Indeed, Daisy remains at “Turner Hill” when Beck interviews her. As the raconteuse of the Turner's story, Daisy's own voice is central throughout. Now, all of Alec and Sally's children and grandchildren have died. Journey's End is no more. But, thanks to Beck's work, the Turner family story endures.

Daisy Turner's Kin triumphs in demonstrating the importance of oral history; while dates and other details may often have to be eschewed, stories passed through generations of families are meaningful and resonant, as well as often being “factually” credible. The Turners’ story invigorates our understanding of US history by personalizing it, and enlivens the past by tracing the Turner family to the present. Daisy Turner's Kin is a compelling story of a family that gives insights into a tumultuous period of transition in American history.