The tracing of the descendants of the Mayflower passengers.

Best known as a Norfolk ornithologist, Moss Taylor’s autobiography, My Family Through Six Generations, pays scant attention to this aspect of his life. Rather, it focuses on his family history from the late Victorian and Edwardian period in Southampton to the early years of the 21st century. Both his grandfather and father were members of the Magic Circle, while an interest in photography has permeated through four generations. Educated at Chigwell School in Essex, Moss qualified in medicine at London’s Royal Free School of Medicine and eventually worked as a general practitioner at Sheringham, in north Norfolk. It was while working in Great Yarmouth that he met his future wife, Fran, who devoted her life to her husband and their three sons. Her tragic death from cancer forms the moving finale to the book.

While working on his second novel, John Sedgwick spiraled into a depression so profound that it very nearly resulted in suicide. An author acclaimed for his intimate literary excursions into the rarified, moneyed enclave of Brahmin Boston, he decided to search for the roots of his malaise in the history of his own storied family—one of America's oldest and most notable. Following a bloodline that travels from Theodore Sedgwick, compatriot of George Washington and John Adams, to Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's tragic muse, John Sedgwick's very personal journey of self-discovery became something far greater: a spellbinding study of the evolution of an extraordinary American family.

Winner of the Distinguished Book Award from American Sociology Association Sociology of Religion Section Winner of the Richard Kalish Best Publication Award from the Gerontological Society of America Few things are more likely to cause heartache to devout parents than seeing their child leave the faith. And it seems, from media portrayals, that this is happening more and more frequently. But is religious change between generations common? How does religion get passed down from one generation to the next? How do some families succeed in passing on their faith while others do not? Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed Down across Generations seeks to answer these questions and many more. For almost four decades, Vern Bengtson and his colleagues have been conducting the largest-ever study of religion and family across generations. Through war and social upheaval, depression and technological revolution, they have followed more than 350 families composed of more than 3,500 individuals whose lives span more than a century--the oldest was born in 1881, the youngest in 1988--to find out how religion is, or is not, passed down from one generation to the next. What they found may come as a surprise: despite enormous changes in American society, a child is actually more likely to remain within the fold than leave it, and even the nonreligious are more likely to follow their parents' example than to rebel. And while outside forces do play a role, the crucial factor in whether a child keeps the faith is the presence of a strong fatherly bond. Mixing unprecedented data with gripping interviews and sharp analysis, Families and Faith offers a fascinating exploration of what allows a family to pass on its most deeply-held tradition--its faith.

This is a powerful personal chronicle of the real-life saga of a Native American family, and how they endured the destruction of its way of life to survive in the modern world. Boyd's story is a history marked not only by love, but by prejudice, suffering, abuse, and the central ruination of her people. Photos.