The popularity of amateur genealogy and family history has soared in recent times. Genealogy, Psychology and Identity explores this popular international pastime and offers reasons why it informs our sense of who we are, and our place in both contemporary culture and historical context. We will never know any of the people we discover from our histories in person, but for several reasons we recognize that their lives shaped ours. Paula Nicolson draws on her experiences tracing her own family history to show how people can connect with archival material, using documents and texts to expand their knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial experiences of their ancestors. Key approaches to identity and relationships lend clues to our own lives but also to what psychosocial factors run across generations. Attachment and abandonment, trusting, being let down, becoming independent, migration, health and money, all resonate with the psychological experiences that define the outlooks, personalities and the ways that those who came before us related to others. Nicolson highlights the importance of genealogy in the development of identity and the therapeutic potential of family history in cultivating well-being that will be of interest to those researching their own family tree, genealogists and counsellors, as well as students and researchers in social psychology and social history.

This important book examines the motives that drive family historians and explores whether those who research their ancestral pedigrees have distinct personalities, demographics or family characteristics. It describes genealogists’ experiences as they chart their family trees including their insights, dilemmas and the fascinating, sometimes disturbing and often surprising, outcomes of their searches. Drawing on theory and research from psychology and other humanities disciplines, as well as from the authors’ extensive survey data collected from over 800 amateur genealogists, the authors present the experiences of family historians, including personal insights, relationship changes, mental health benefits and ethical dilemmas. The book emphasises the motivation behind this exploration, including the need to acknowledge and tell ancestral stories, the spiritual and health-related aspects of genealogical research, the addictiveness of the detective work, the lifelong learning opportunities and the passionate desire to find lost relatives. With its focus on the role of family history in shaping personal identity and contemporary culture, this is fascinating reading for anyone studying genealogy and family history, professional genealogists and those researching their own history.

Identity, Attachment and Resilience provides a timely foray into the new field of psychology and genealogy, exploring the relationship between family history and identity. The field encompasses family narratives and researches family history to increase our understanding of cultural and personal identity, as well as our sense of self. It draws on emotional geography and history to provide rich yet personalised contexts for family experience. In this book, Antonia Bifulco researches three generations of her own Czechowski family, beginning in Poland in the late nineteenth century and moving on to post-WWII England. She focuses on key family members and places to describe individual experience against the socio-political backdrop of both World Wars. Utilising letters, journals and handwritten biographies of family members, the book undertakes an analysis of impacts on identity (sense of self ), attachment (family ties) and resilience (coping under adversity), drawing out timely wider themes of immigration and European identity. Representing a novel approach for psychologists, linking family narrative to social context and intergenerational impacts, Identity, Attachment and Resilience describes Eastern European upheaval over the twentieth century to explain why Polish communities have settled in England. With particular relevance for Polish families seeking to understand their cultural heritage and identity, this unique account will be of great interest to any reader interested in family narratives, immigration and identity. It will appeal to students and researchers of psychology, history and social sciences.

Noted social scientist Eviatar Zerubavel casts a critical eye on how we trace our past-individually and collectively arguing that rather than simply find out who our ancestors are from genetics or history, we actually create the stories that make them our ancestors.

'Identity' as a concept has many faces, and its very versatility in different contexts can make it hard to define. Florian Coulmas discusses the many meanings of this slippery concept, considering why individual and collective identities are important to us, and discussing the problems asserting individual identities can create.

“A fascinating exploration of the mysteries ignited by DNA genealogy testing—from the intensely personal and concrete to the existential and unsolvable.” —Tana French, New York Times–bestselling author You swab your cheek or spit in a vial, then send it away to a lab somewhere. Weeks later you get a report that might tell you where your ancestors came from or if you carry certain genetic risks. Or, the report could reveal a long-buried family secret that upends your entire sense of identity. Soon a lark becomes an obsession, a relentless drive to find answers to questions at the core of your being, like “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?” Welcome to the age of home genetic testing. In The Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. She explores the culture of genealogy buffs, the science of DNA, and the business of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe, all while tracing the story of one woman, her unusual results, and a relentless methodical drive for answers that becomes a thoroughly modern genetic detective story. Gripping and masterfully told, The Lost Family is a spectacular book on a big, timely subject. “An urgently necessary, powerful book that addresses one of the most complex social and bioethical issues of our time.” —Dani Shapiro, New York Times–bestselling author “Before you spit in that vial, read this book.” —The New York Times Book Review “Impeccably researched . . . up-to-the-minute science meets the philosophy of identity in a poignant, engaging debut.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Fully revised and updated, Genealogy, Psychology and Therapy highlights the importance of genealogy in the development of identity, and the therapeutic potential of family history in cultivating wellbeing. The popularity of amateur genealogy and family history has soared in recent times. We will never know any of the people we discover from our histories in person, but for several reasons, we recognize that their lives shaped ours. Key approaches to identity and relationships lend clues to our own lives but also to what psychosocial factors run across generations. Attachment and abandonment, trusting, being let down, becoming independent, migration, health and money, all resonate with the psychological experiences that define the outlooks, personalities and the ways that those who came before us related to others. This new edition builds on the original book, Genealogy, Psychology, and Identity, by highlighting the work of Erik Erikson along with studies of the quality of attachment, historical social conditions especially war, forced migration, health inequalities and financial uncertainty, to enable a more detailed understanding of trauma and its long shadow, and to focus on how genealogy informs our identities and emotional health status, exploring the transmission of trauma across generations. The intergenerational transmission of trauma is examined using analysis of real-life family examples, alongside an assessment of a narrative therapy approach to healing. The book expands on how psychological practices together with genealogical evidence may impart resilience and emotional repair, and develops the discussion of the psychological methods by which we interconnect in a reflective way with material from archival databases, family stories and photographs and other sources including DNA. Showing how people can connect with archival material, using documents and texts to expand their knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial experiences of their ancestors, this book will be of interest to those researching their own family tree, genealogists and counsellors, as well as students and researchers in social psychology and social history.