Are you a descendant of the Mende and/or Temne people of Sierra Leone? Those two ethnic groups were in the Sierra Leone region centuries BEFORE the transatlantic slave trade, and they are still there today. Therefore, if your ancestry is Mende and/or Temne, then it's very likely that your ancestor was in fact in that region before being brought to America. As I understand it, many Mende/Temne people were transported to Charleston, S.C. because planters preferred Africans from the Windward Coast region because of their rice-growing abilities. The Gullah people of coastal S.C. and Georgia are direct descendants of the Mende/Temne people and other neighboring ethnic groups in the Sierra Leone region.