One morning, in June of 2016, an e-mail popped into my inbox from the grandniece of Donaldina Cameron, one of the main characters in The White Devil’s Daughters, my nonfiction account of the women who fought slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

I’d already been researching and writing my book for more than three years by that time. Ann Cameron’s email  said that while cleaning out her brother’s home for a move, she’d discovered a box filled with photos, letters, and other genealogical material about her great aunt Dolly, as Donaldina was known.