Slavery and African Ethnities in the Americas-Restoring the Links

Hi! Currently I'm reading this book, especially in regards to doing research on my family tree and sending in my recent patriclan DNA samples to African Ancestry.com. This book by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall touches on the enslavement of many African peoples that were taken to the Americas. Contrary to the belief that African slaves were taken by random based on short term profit gain by slave traders and slavemasters and that supposedly slavery had all but destroyed or severed cultural links between Africans in the Americas and those in the Motherland, only a significant number of ethnic groups were brought here. As stated in the back of the book, "Gwendolyn Midlo Hall traces the linguistic, economic, and cultural ties shared by large numbers of enslaved Africans, showing that despite the fragmentation of the diaspora many ethnic groups retained enough cohesion to communicate and to transmit elements of their shared culture." This book is especially for those of African descent in America who have skepticism about trying out DNA testing as a means to tracing their lineage, combining the use of DNA test results and this book (also Exchanging Our Country Marks by Michael Gomez) can help out. Geographically speaking as a concluding point, certain slaves from certain parts of Africa were brought to certain parts of the Americas based on expertise in the fields, preferred ethnicities and slave route that were manageable (for example, most slaves in Jamaica came mainly from the Akan ethnic group in present day Ghana).