For the past several years, I have been researching my heritage and retracing the foot steps of where my ancestors once stood. Through this journey, I wrote my first book Securing the Legacy of the Eldridge/Minter family. During my beginning stages of research, I traveled throughout Virginia and North Carolina. On January 8, 2015 I was featured in the Sanford Herald a newspaper company in Sanford, NC using my research in efforts to stand up against Coal Ash Dumping in a African American Community where my family resides and where my ancestors are buried. Thankfully through DNA test and research documentation, I was able to help other families come together that have been separated through slavery. In August 2016, I released my second book Red Lodge and Its Connections which is a book about a former plantation in Amelia, VA which later became an African community for many of the slaves descendants. This is my third completed work of my family history and the community in which they lived. For me, genealogy has proven to be a lifetime work. I firmly believe that we should never forget from whence we came and the great people who paved the way. Emanuel A. Hyde III