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.

The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See You Tomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as he retraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, taking readers into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and small businessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how they imagined the world to come.

A beautiful gift and keepsake album to record the genealogy and family history.

Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA is the highly suspenseful account of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records. This fascinating quest, including the author's landmark use of DNA testing, takes readers on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride and concludes with a twist that rivals anything Hollywood has to offer. In the vein of a classic mystery, Hill gathers the seemingly scant evidence surrounding the circumstances of his birth. As his resolve shores up, the author also avails of new friends, genealogists, the Internet, and the latest DNA tests in the new field of genetic genealogy. As he closes in on the truth of his ancestry, he is able to construct a living, breathing portrait of the young woman who was faced with the decision to forsake her rights to her child, and ultimately the man whose identity had remained hidden for decades. Finding Family offers guidance, insight, and motivation for anyone engaged in a similar mission, from ways to obtain information to the many networks that can facilitate adoption searches. The book includes a detailed guide to DNA and genetic genealogy and how they can produce irrefutable results in determining genetic connections and help adoptees bypass sealed records and similar stumbling blocks.

Karin Bojs grew up in a small, broken family. At her mother's funeral she felt this more keenly than ever. As a science journalist she was eager to learn more about herself, her family and the interconnectedness of society. After all, we're all related. And in a sense, we are all family. My European Family tells the story of Europe and its people through its genetic legacy, from the first wave of immigration to the present day, weaving in the latest archaeological findings. Karin goes deep in search of her genealogy; by having her DNA sequenced she was able to trace the path of her ancestors back through the Viking and Bronze ages to the Neolithic and beyond into prehistory, even back to a time when Neanderthals ran the European show. Travelling to dozens of countries to follow the story, she learns about early farmers in the Middle East and flute-playing cavemen in Germany and France, and a whole host of other fascinating characters. This book looks at genetics from a uniquely pan-European perspective, with the author meeting dozens of geneticists, historians and archaeologists in the course of her research. The genes of this seemingly ordinary modern European woman have a truly fascinating story to tell, and in many ways it is the true story of Europe. At a time when politics is pushing nations apart, this book shows that, ultimately, our genes will always bind us together.

A practical guide to shamanic ancestor work, inspired by Huna and supported by guided rituals and exercises • Explains how to heal traumatic experiences and old blockages that are stored in the memory of your lineage • Includes Hawaiian teachings about spiritual and genetic ancestors and reveals how to bond with your spirit family, your Aumakua • Shows how unlocking the support of your ancestors enables you to shine your light fully Knowing your ancestral lineage is not only a matter of curiosity, your life path will unfold with much more ease if you are aware and in harmony with your origins. Exploring the heritage of your bloodline as well as the energy of your spiritual family, which we are often less aware of, opens you up to enormous potential for healing and self-development. This practical guide explains, in a clear and straightforward way, how the energy field of our ancestors influences our personal lives and how we can draw from their strength as well as liberate ourselves from burdens that have been carried over generations. It helps us to lift the veil of forgetting and allow ourselves to fully shine our light, supported by the souls that came before us, by making peace with past hurts and traumas. Drawing on the Huna Hawaiian shamanic tradition as well as other shamanic and energetic practices, the authors show how to connect with our Aumakua, our ancestors and higher self, which includes our close relatives, ancestors stretching back thousands of years, and our spiritual ancestors or karmic family. The authors offer practices to reconcile with our parents and spiritual family, uncover suppressed matters and family secrets, clear and charge our personal energy field and our family energy field, and awaken the potential of our bloodline. They explain how to perform an ancestor healing circle, carry out an ancestor release ritual, and offer blessings for children and grandchildren as well as providing meditative journeys to meet our ancestors, our spiritual family, and our spiritual roots in other realms. They also provide short case studies to illustrate how the rituals and exercises have worked for other people. By enacting ancestral healing, we can recognize who we are, where we come from, and truly fulfill our destiny in this life.

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.