The quest for roots has been an enduring American preoccupation. Over the centuries, generations have sketched coats of arms, embroidered family trees, established local genealogical societies, and carefully filled in the blanks in their bibles, all in pursuit of self-knowledge and status through kinship ties. This long and varied history of Americans’ search for identity illuminates the story of America itself, according to François Weil, as fixations with social standing, racial purity, and national belonging gave way in the twentieth century to an embrace of diverse ethnicity and heritage. Seeking out one’s ancestors was a genteel pursuit in the colonial era, when an aristocratic pedigree secured a place in the British Atlantic empire. Genealogy developed into a middle-class diversion in the young republic. But over the next century, knowledge of one’s family background came to represent a quasi-scientific defense of elite “Anglo-Saxons” in a nation transformed by immigration and the emancipation of slaves. By the mid-twentieth century, when a new enthusiasm for cultural diversity took hold, the practice of tracing one’s family tree had become thoroughly democratized and commercialized. Today, Ancestry.com attracts over two million members with census records and ship manifests, while popular television shows depict celebrities exploring archives and submitting to DNA testing to learn the stories of their forebears. Further advances in genetics promise new insights as Americans continue their restless pursuit of past and place in an ever-changing world.

A guide to finding out one's own family history and how to formally record it.

Argues that significant barriers to family-making exist for lesbian mothers of color in the United States One might be tempted, in the afterglow of Obergefell v. Hodges, to believe that the battle has been won, that gays and lesbians fought a tough fight and finally achieved equality in the United States through access to legal marriage. But that narrative tells only one version of a very complex story about family and citizenship. Queering Family Trees explores the lived experience of queer mothers in the United States, drawing on over one hundred interviews with African American, Latina, Native American, white, and Asian American lesbian mothers living in a range of socioeconomic circumstances to show how they have navigated family-making. While the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption in 2015 has provided avenues toward equality for some couples, structural and economic barriers have meant that others—especially queer women of color who often have fewer financial resources—have not been able to access seemingly available “choices” such as second-parent adoptions, powers of attorney, and wills. Sandra Patton-Imani here argues that the virtual exclusion of lesbians of color from public narratives about LGBTQ families is crucial to maintaining the narrative that legal marriage for same-sex couples provides access to full equality as citizens. Through the lens of reproductive justice, Patton-Imani argues that the federal legalization of same-sex marriage reinforces existing structures of inequality grounded in race, gender, sexuality, and class. Queering Family Trees explores the lives of a critically erased segment of the queer population, demonstrating that the seemingly “color blind” solutions offered by marriage equality do not rectify such inequalities.

Where am I on my family tree? A beloved bestseller that shows children how to understand their place among their relatives, now refreshed with new art from Emma Trithart. Who is part of your family? How are they related to you? In this edition of Me and My Family Tree, with new art by Emma Trithart, a young girl uses simple language, her own childlike drawings, and diagrams to explain how the members of her family are related to each other and to her. Clear, colorful, detailed artwork and a fill-in family tree in the back help make the parts of the family--from siblings to grandparents to cousins--understandable to very young readers.

Uses projects and ideas for research to show children how to trace their families' histories.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORTICO PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD WINNER OF CALIBRE AUDIO’S ‘HIDDEN GEM’ AWARD ________

Families are equal parts blood, duty, history, fights, and future. Families are beautiful, complicated, and infuriating. Pastors' doors revolve with families looking for healing from one another. Siblings hold grudges for years. Parents stop speaking to their kids. People want to escape their families and fix them, celebrate them, and never speak to them again. But what can break our generational curses? What can shine bright light into our dark hearts? What can change everything - even our ugliest family feuds? God's grace and His forgiveness. Family Trees and Olive Branches points readers to the authority and comfort of Scripture as they seek to repair and improve their family relationships. Inspired by Matthew 18:22, Family Trees and Olive Branches is a conversation about grace, the oil that unsticks fighting families. No matter how black the sheep of your family is, how hurtful your parents can be, or how long it has been since you've spoken to your brother, God's answer to family fallouts is always grace. In this book, readers will look at the different types of olive branches in the Bible with the purpose of opening their hearts and minds to spiritual transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit. Each chapter offers lessons of forgiveness, tips on reflecting God's grace in our toughest relationships, journal and prayer prompts, and discussion starters.