# Final considerations  
The method of studying biography not only contributes to understanding individual trajectories but also makes possible a detailed investigation of the collective identities that people wove throughout their lives. However, a historian cannot investigate archives at random, in search of an opportunity to produce the biography of an African. Such opportunities must be made. Therefore, it is necessary to review the criteria used for selecting documents. The method of biography of Africans in diaspora should not be chosen after the selection of the sources because one can select documents according to the voices one wishes to hear, the narratives one wishes to create and the people one wishes to study as protagonists of history. In this case, the choice of documents, the modes of analysis and the style of the narrative are fundamental, so that Africans can be more than numbers, so that they can be seen as individuals who were able to manage their histories.  
The documents with narratives about Africans in diaspora should be privileged. Testaments are particularly interesting since the information they present is usually dictated by Africans themselves. Besides, they did so at a moment when they were examining their own lives carefully, emphasizing interests and stating what should be done with their possessions and their bodies as well as stating their convictions about the afterlife. In this process, evidence that was ignored by statistical methods turns out to be fundamental, aiding historians in identifying and analysing transformations that people underwent over the course of their lives.