For Ruby Laura Madison Wilson, her family’s ties to President James Madison had long been a point of pride.

“Always remember—you’re a Madison,” she told her daughter, author Bettye Kearse. “You come from African slaves and a president.”

Kearse, however, felt differently. She was unable to separate her DNA from the “humiliation, uncertainty, and physical and emotional harm” experienced by her enslaved ancestor, a woman named Coreen who was, in fact, the Founding Father’s half-sister. According to family tradition, as passed down by generations of griot oral historians, Madison raped Coreen, who gave birth to a son, Jim, around 1792. Jim’s son, Emanuel Madison, was Kearse’s great-great-grandfather.

The Other Madisons marks the culmination of Kearse’s 30-year investigation into not only her own family history, but that of other enslaved and free African Americans whose voices have been silenced over the centuries. Though she lacks conclusive DNA or documentary evidence linking her to Madison, Kearse hasn’t let this upend her sense of identity.

As the retired pediatrician writes on her website, “[H]ow could I prove my family’s story if slaves … were not included as people in the history that mattered to those who created and maintained the records? The problem is not DNA, I realized; the problem is the Constitution.”