Democracy's Data - Dan Bouk

 Sub-title: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them

The author, a computational mathematician and historian, takes us on a journey through the evolution of the U.S. census, using the 1940 census that was released in 2012.  He takes us through how the census questions were chosen, how the forms were distributed and tallied, how the enumerators interviewed the people and how the population responded.  A geeky, nerdy read for a genealogist that adds a perspective on what went in to creating one of our valuable sources.  Did you know the 1850 census missed a huge part of California due to a fire?  Or that in 1920, Tacoma Washington's rolls were overstated by 30,000 imaginary people?

Bouk tells the stories behind the data, beginning with "the Question Men', the government officials (all men, except for one woman) who chose the questions to be included, and which ones to exclude.  He covers the doorstep negotiations on what name was recorded by the enumerator and the force fitting of everyone into a form designed for a traditional nuclear family.  He demonstrates how what and who was left out of the census reflected the values, good and bad, of the 1940s and the decades before then.  It devotes a chapter to how a politician encouraged the population to not answer the census as he framed it as a a breach of privacy and it's use to identify Japanese Americans in WWII was an egregious abuse. 

I enjoyed learning the history of the census, its benefits and shortcomings and most of all its importance to our country.  

Quotes:

"The historian of quantification Caitlin Rosenthal teaches students to read the frame of the data- the column headings and row names whatever organizes and constrains the data."

"In 1850, the census began enumerating each free individual by  name.  ..Ralph Waldo Emerson called this time the age of the first person singular."

"Jennifer Mendelsohn's...#resistancegenealogy"

"The 1920 census was plagued by padding fiascos- most spectacularly in Tacoma, Washington...conspired with local enumerators to make up more than thirty thousand people."

"maps created by...risk evaluators for the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) to support federal mortgage lending."

"The Census Bureau lent its experts to the INS to help design the alien-registration forms, to facilitate the nationwide process of getting immigrants to register..."

"In 1850, the official report noted that the new state of California had suffered a data catastrophe, with multiple counties' worth of figures (including San Francisco County) were burned or lost in transit."

"Big data ...innovator says don't worry about where the data came from...this book has made clear how foolish and dangerous a cry like that is.   When data ets represent people, those who want to ue that data should have to think..how those datafied persons can continue to be faithfully and justly represented."

"In 1929 the number of representatives was capped at 435 and the number of people represented was 40,000 ...and has risen to 700,000."

Published: 2022  Read: November 2022  Genre: History

American Nations - Colin Woodard

Sub-title: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

Do you have ancestors from the 17th and 18th centuries in North America? Are you tracing families as they migrated across the United States?  Woodard takes us through the wave of settlers in North America and illustrates the impact of their differing beliefs and values on our society today.  I recommend this book as a must read for any genealogist!

The book asks "Why do Americans have such a difficult time agreeing on basic issues?"  The answer is that the different regions of the country evolved from eleven different "nations".  For genealogists, his description of their settling and migrating across the United States provides essential insight into the origins of our ancestors.

The 11 regions described are: El Norte, New France, Tidewater, Yankeedom, New Netherland, Deep South, Midlands, Greater Appalachia, Far West, the Left Coast, and First Nation. Each region grew from their founding members into distinct groups with shared goals reflected in their viewpoints.

El Norte originated with the Spanish explorers and settled New Mexico, Texas, Arizona.  New France settled North East Canada and Louisiana. Tidewater originated with English settlers to Virginia. the Pilgrims and Puritans desired to build new societies in Yankeedom. New Netherland originated with the Dutch settlers in New York.  

The Deep South grew from entrepreneurs from the Caribbean exploiting slave labor..the Midlands from those moving away from the East Coast regions...Greater Appalachia from Scotch/Irish wanting to be left alone.  The Far West ...Left Coast and First Nation grew from the migration of the first groups across the continent.  The author goes into detail on each regions' founding and it evolution to date.

Interestingly, in the Epilogue, he addresses what the future of these regions that now form the United States. He predicted in 2011 when the book was published the possibility that 

"faced with a major crisis, the federations leaders will betray their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution... In the midst of say, a deadly pandemic outbreak...a fearful public might condone the suspension of civil rights. One can easily imagine circumstances in which some nations are happy with the new order and others deeply opposed to it."

A great read with a fascinating perspective on how we all got here. 

Quotes:

"Cultural geographers came to similar conclusions decades ago.  ...formulating a key theory...called the Doctrine of First Effective Settlement" 

p. 317 "the red and blue nations will continue to wrestle with one another for control over federal policy...just as they have since the First Continental Congress."  

MAP of nations

 

Published: 2011  Read: September 2022  

A Broken Tree - Stephen F Anderson

 Sub-title: How DNA exposed a family's secrets

This is the story of the type of unexpected results that can be found with DNA testing.  The author, a long-time employee of FamilySearch, the genealogy powerhouse, suspected that he and his siblings were not all of the same parents, and DNA testing proved his suspicions.  I was struck by his seeming lack of knowledge of DNA testing for someone who worked in the genealogy industry.  He began testing of YDNA and proceeded cautiously as the years went on, being mindful of the feelings of his parents and siblings.  A mindful example of the issues that arise with DNA testing.

Published: 2019   Read: June 2022  Genre: Memoir

Origin - Jennifer Raff

 Sub-title: A Genetic History of the Americas

I've been reading recently published books addressing genetics and DNA.  This one came to my attention in my social media feed and I had to wait several weeks for it to be available at the library.

The author is an anthropologist and geneticist with the University of Kansas.  While she is letting the research on ancient remains tell the story of how the Americas may have bee populated, her larger message is that the scientific community and the general public needs to seek out and respect the Native Americans who are the modern descendants of the peoples they study and research and that we should be collaborating with them, as she does.

I enjoyed the summary of the science to date, the history of the finds and analysis of the on-site anthropological materials as well as the laboratory work done to analyze DNA.  A good read that brought into perspective the studies being done to trace our human family.  I will be interested to see what fellow genealogists who have researched Native American DNA think of her book.

Quotes:

p. 150 - She provides an explanation of extensive lab procedures for cleanliness and to avoid contamination as "...a contract between ourselves [scientists] and the Indigenous peoples who have given us permission to conduct this work" that demonstrates the ethics of anthropology and genetics.

p. 198 - She describes the parallels between the evolution of dogs as contributing to being "...able to get insights into human story from an unexpected source: the genomes of dogs."

p. 256 - "...the Common Rule, which underlies ethical oversight of research on humans (governed by Institutional Review Boards or IRBs) does not apply to ancient humans.  NAGPRA, the law the governs human remains and artifacts associated with descendant tribe, does not apply to the remains of ancient people found on private property."

p. 261 - "For Indigenous peoples this [Native American heritage] is not a minor or abstract issue; giving legitimacy to the notion that one can claim Native identify via a DNA test or family legend without any connection to present-day tribes is an implicit threat to tribal sovereignty....Because of widespread interest ...commercial ancestry testing services are intensely focused on obtaining Native American DNA from tribal members...met with a fair amount of resistance.  The marketing of ancestor test as "telling you who you are" is not accurate.  It boils down to this - what makes a person Indigenous is not a subject on which I- or any other non-Native geneticist- can speak with any authority or knowledge."

Published: 2022  Read: May 2022  Genre: Science

Ancestor Trouble - Maud Newton

 Sub-title: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation
This was a fascinating read!  The author weaves stories of her lives into the history of genealogy and her family.  It's a rolling journey connecting epigenetics, genograms, forced sterilization, neuroscience, DNA, kinship and even spiritual practices that reflect our family ties over the generations.   

Quotes:

p. 50 "As of 2019, 23andMe's data set for sub-Saharan African ancestry relies on only 1,980 reference individuals...1,634 Central and South Asian...Europeans..6,328."

p. 51 "...African Ancestry, a Black-owned site with more than 30,000 Indigenous African DNA samples."

[Note: invalid comparison I noted to author and she replied she would review and correct]

p. 66 "...any genomic predictions that were removed from the outward-facing, customer perspective are still available to 23andMe - and its investors."

p.67 "Daniela Hernandez...Splinter..Ancestry has been collecting ancestral data about its users for decades."

p. 68 "empathy gene...has never been incorporated into 23andMe's own results (GG at Rs53576)"

p.143 "[Craig] Venter conceded in his 2007 memoir, A Life Decoded, Genes are not the whole story."

p.185 "Emotional recurrences in families...I often think family patterns are the primary existential conundrum we all have incommon, apart from death and basic needs like food and shelter.."

p. 187 "Touched by Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison...the particular type of family tree that populates Jamison's book is called a genogram (or sometimes a genosociogram).  These graphs can be useful for mapping traits through families but are similar to those used for pedigrees generated by the Eugenic Record Office...in 1910."

p. 234 "...so many of us spend our lives struggling with or against our ancestors' dreams without knowing precisely how or why."

Published: 2022  Read: May 2022  Genre: Memoir

DNA for Native American Genealogy - Roberta Estes

 This book is a much needed volume addressing the use of DNA analysis along with genealogical research to identify and verify native american heritage.  It's divided into 6 parts:

Part 1: Seeking Native Ancestors

Part 2: Ethnicity and Population Genetics - a good explanation of how this is done

Part 3: DNA Testing

Part 4: MtDNA

Part 5: Y-DNA ancient and modern

Part 6: Roadmap and checklist

There are many tables accompanying each topic, making it an excellent reference when pursuing DNA for Native American research.  Highly recommended.

Published: 2021  Read: April 2022 Genre: Genealogy

Kiss Myself Goodbye - Ferdinand Mount

Sub-title: The Many Lives of Aunt Munca

My love of genealogy is really a love for a good story.  Family lends itself to telling stories and genealogy helps reveal those that might have been lost had I not sought them out.  In this story about his aunt, the author uses his considerable writing and research skills to charmingly peel back the curtain on the life of his flamboyant, daring, larger than life aunt.  

Munca was the name she insisted he call her, rather than Aunt something.  After Munca died, a cousin had encouraged him to search for the real story of his aunt's life.  What a life it was! What fascinated me was how he used the same records that we would collect as genealogist to track her path through the world.  He wove her residence, marriage, divorce and other finds into his quest to unravel the truth of the stories she had told him.  Mount was the editor of the Times Literary Supplement so he knows how to engage a reader.  

Another appeal of the book is that the writer is English - through and through.  He writes for those who known England and it was a challenge to immerse myself in the language, locations and lifestyle of the upper class British elite of the time. I chuckled at the term "Paternal Discrepancy" that genealogist term a non-parental event or NPE, which the author claims may account for no less than 3.7% of all births.

 A great read highly recommended, genealogist or not!

Quotes

"How fragile it all is, how brief anyone's hold on property, or money, or life itself."

"What you don't know can sting the heart worse than the worst thing you do know.  And go on stinging, because while knowledge brings some sort of ending, not knowing never ends."

"How seductive it is, this idea that you do not need parents to make you happy, or to make the best of yourself.  On the contrary, to be a heroine, it is better to be free of these nagging, fretting figures in charge of you, and to forge on through life unencumbered.  Far from orphanhood/adoption being any sort of handicap, it's actually a launch-pad."

Published: 2020  Read: October 2021  Genre: Biography

Your DNA Guide the Book - Diahan Southard

Sub-title: Step by Step Plans to Connect you with your Family Using your DNA

Let me start by saying, I wish I had written this book! Diahan has taken her straightforward, friendly approach I've seen her utilize in her genealogy conference presentations and created a fantastic guide to all things related to DNA genealogy.  I thoroughly enjoyed that the book, while designed as a customize-able, step by step guide, is also a plain language resource for DNA  and genealogy information.  

The book has you define a DNA research goal and then guides you through a path to your goal, learning along the way.   The table of contents reads like a list of DNA research questions I've been asked many times. For an overview of the book, there is a flowchart or Map of the Plan for research on pages 19 and 20.  

This is not a straight, page turning read.  You chose the next topic based on your answers to questions about your goal.  I followed the approach for a couple of DNA cases I've worked on and was impressed on how it helped me zero in on what I had done and where I needed to go next.  

The book does not go into great detail on the science of DNA, or the evolution of genetic DNA testing but instead gives a practical, get results approach to working with your DNA matches to answer your puzzle.  I would recommend it be added to any genealogist's library.

Published: 2020  Read: January 2021  Genre: Non-fiction

Before and After - Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

 This is the book I wanted to be written when I read the fictionalized story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.  It's the true stories of several of the children who were adopted through the Home run by an unscrupulous woman, Georgia Tann, who for over 30 years trafficked in children with impunity.

The first three-fourths of the book are positive, upbeat stories of how the children's lives turned out well despite always having a feeling of being different.  Most were raised as only children who were adopted into well-to-do homes.  The last few stories were not so positive.  The writing was weak and I was frustrated that the writers didn't seem to attempt to research adoption or unknown parentage. I also felt that their lack of organization in pulling the adoptees together was inexcusable, as if they were just trying to promote themselves and write a book and needed the stories to pull it together.  

Published: 2019  Read: September 2020   Genre: Non-fiction

Inheritance - Dani Shapiro

Subtitle: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love

I took a long time to getting around to reading this.  I'd put in on hold at the library back in February but couldn't get it until this week.  I devoured it in 24 hours!  The author finds out through a DNA test that her father is not her biological father and embarks on a journey to discover the truth. She was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and was often told she "didn't look Jewish".  She's a terrific writer, sharing her emotional roller coaster as she discovers her true paternity.  I was also fascinated by the rituals and practices of the Jewish faith.  This one goes to the top of my list for 2020
M440247/A765211

Published: 2019  Read: May 2020 Genre: Memoir

Genome - Matt Ridley

Subtitle: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

I've been working through my collection of DNA related books while staying home. This book was published several years ago so it is a bit out of date but still a great introduction to each chromosome.  Written after the mapping of the complete human genome, the author explains gene discoveries related to each chromosome and the science story behind each one.  A great read and a revealing, inspiring look at what genetics hold for the future.

Quotes/Notes:

Intro - "...twenty-two pair are in approximate order by size, from largest(1) to smallest (22)...in size the X comes between 7 and 8 ...whereas Y is the smallest."

"Imagine that the genome is a book.

            23 chapters, called chromosomes

            Each chapter contains several thousand stories called genes

            Each story is made up of paragraphs called exons, interrupted by advertisements called introns

            Each paragraph is made up of words, called codons

            Each word is written in letters called bases. "

 Chr 2 - "Apart from the fusion of Chr 2 visible differences between chimp and humans chrs are few and tiny. ...we are to a 98% approximation chimpanzees."

Chr 4 - Huntington's disease - first completely dominant human genetic disease to come to light.  a Long Island group in twelve generations of this pedigree more than a thousand cases of the disease...all descended from two brothers who emigrated from Suffolk in 1630.

Chr 7 - Instinct - the most startling evidence for a language instinct comes from a series of natural experiments in which children imposed grammatical rules upon language that lacked them.  ...pidgin language that became a creole in Hawaii in next generation.

Chr X and Y - Conflict - sex-chr drive - statistics - since females have two X chrs, 3/4's of all sex chrs are Xs.  Therefore, the X chr is 3 times as likely to evolve the ability to take pot shots at the Y.

Chr 8 - Aug 1986 murder in Leicestershire used DNA for the first time in history to exonerate a suspect (Pitchfork case)

Chr 14 - at the end of the chr there occurs a repated stretch of meaningless text the word TTAGGG repeated again and again about two thousand times.  ...known as a telomere.  Its presence enables the DNA copying devices to get started without cutting short any sens-containing text.  

Published: 2013  Read: May 2020  Genre: Science

In the Blood - Steve Robinson

This was a Christmas gift. The author writes mysteries that focus on using genealogical data to solve the case.  His protagonist, Jefferson Tayte is a modern genealogist using those skills to unravel old secrets.  It was entertaining and made accurate and clever use of genealogy sources and methods.  The writing was a little formulaic and it took sometime to capture my attention.  I would read another volume in the series while relaxing on the beach.

Published:  2011  Read: March 2019  Genre: Mystery

Ancestors - William Maxwell

Sub-title: A Family History

Not really an auto-biography, more of a personal genealogy augmented with imagination and perfect prose, a great example of how to tell the story of a family.  Maxwell reminisces about how his ancestors experienced the recorded evidence of their lives and documents for posterity their stories, augmented with his embellishment of time and place.  My favorite read so far this year.

Published:  1971  Read: February 2019  Genre: auto-biography

It's All Relative - A J Jacobs

Subtitle: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree

What a great Christmas gift from my step daughter!  Genealogy and a good story - what's not to like?  The author stumbles into his family genealogy and then decides to host the largest family reunion ever.  The friendships he forms and the people he meets on his journey are funny, touching and oh so real.  We really are one big family!

Some quotes I flagged:

"...writer Andrew Solomon has a different language.  He talks about the 'horizontal family' (who share your passion or worldview or condition) and 'vertical family' (parents, kids, grandparents, etc.)."

"Yaniv Erlich...a geneticist at Columbia University...crunched the data from 13 million Geni relatives to figure out patterns of migration.  ...on YouTube [he has] time-lapse animation showing how humans have spread out onto all continents." 

"The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins...taught me a new word: concestor.  This is the common ancestor linking two species."

"Luca stands for Last Universal Common Ancestor". 

Published:  2017  Read: February 2018  Genre: Genealogy, non-fiction

The Stranger in My Genes - Bill Griffeth

I've been obsessed with genealogy since retirement and this book is a perfect appetizer for that hunger.  The author is a CNBC financial news analyst who discovers via a DNA test that the father he was raised with is not his biological father. His story is a poignant revelation of the feelings, thoughts, relationships and changes experienced when these types of secrets are revealed.  He has to decide whether to confront his elderly mother; he has to re-think the family tree branch that he can no longer claim.  A great read for something that more and more people will be confronting as DNA testing continues to grow.

Published:  2016  Read: January 2017  Genre: Memoir

The Invisible History of the Human Race - Christine Kenneally

sub-title: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures

This is a hard book to describe.  It uses current DNA research to explain how the human race has evolved and how our understanding of this evolution affects our thinking and living.

I noted the following passages while reading the book over several weeks:

[Explaining why people pursue genealogy] "It's a feeling of breaking though a wall.  Of the frustration of wanting to know more about your family and your past and what people's lives were like, and where they came from, and who they were, and what their personal stories were, and feeling like you're never going to be able to uncover that.  Once you have that feeling of that great mystery, any piece of information feels like a treasure trove.  ...it's a form of connection that you though you were never going to have."

I can relate to that quote.  There's just something about connecting with my past and the people who's genes I share that is fascinating and satisfying and deepens my understanding of who I am.

[About a study that asked people to estimate how much they would change in the future]  "People have a tendency to think of the present as a watershed moment at which they have finally become the person they will be for the rest of their lives...dubbed the phenomenon the 'end of history illusion'.  History is always ending today."

I don't know that I agree with that statement.  If anything, I think I can always change (for the better) in the future.

[In a discussion about a study on Western values] "Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic nations (WEIRD)"

"It also made me wonder how silence is passed down".  I liked this statement.  Secrets and not-saying can also be passed down in families.

[On a Emory University study exploring the value of family history in the lives of children] "...knowledge of family history appeared to indicate how resilient the children were...it usually means that they have strong connections with mothers and grandmothers...the stories of a family add up to ... an intergenerational self."

To me, that statement makes the case for sharing family stories early and often.

"It is said that autosomal DNA [the kind Ancestry analysis uses] can take you back at least five generations.  The probability of identifying a third cousin using autosomal DNA is roughly 90 percent, a fourth cousin 50 percent, and a fifth cousin 10 percent."

The author talks about the analysis done in 2011 and 2012 by Eran Elhaik who collected historical data from DNA samples.  He now works at the University of Sheffiled and the company Prosapia Genetics has been created based on his analyses.  Prosapia claims to pinpoint the village where your ancestors came from 1,000 of years ago.  There is much controversy about its results and testing.

Another observation of the author's I liked is that DNA is a palimpsest, i.e., a layering of information on top of one another, as in medieval vellum.  "...new stories are layered over old ones, and we can learn more by understanding when and how they were written over one another.  DNA and our life experiences make our bodies palimpsests.  As we learn how to interpret the body in the context of its genetic code, we begin to understand how the hand of fate, the choices of families, and the enormous journey of DNA through deep time affect our lives right now."

Her closing thought is "Your genome is just the first hand that life deals you.  How you play it is up to you."

It was an eclectic mix of different disciplines and the application of DNA information.


Published:  2014  Read: July 2015  Genre: Science History

ISBN: 9 780670025558

The Seven Daughters of Eve - Bryan Sykes

Sub-title: The Science that reveals our genetic ancestry

I ordered this via Amazon because it was a layman's description of how mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from mother's to their children.  Daughters pass it on to their daughters and the author contends that it remains relatively unaltered for thousands of years.  The record of his research and findings was fascinating and I hope to do a mtDNA test someday.  He goes into detail of how mitochondrial genetics, classified all modern Europeans into seven haplogroups.

Like other reviewers, I thought he departed from scientific findings to fanciful interpretation in "describing" each of the seven lines of mtDNA he traced in modern populations.  It's still a compelling read for those interested in DNA research and application.

Quotes:

p. 28 - Like more familiar instruction  systems such as language, number or computer binary code what matters is not so much the symbols themselves bu the order in which they appear."

Question: what other simple instructions systems are there?

p. 71 - using mtDNA to disprove descendants of Russian czar

p. 126 - Neanderthals are not our ancestors

p. 128 - explanation of mules and why Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal may have split



Published: 2001  Read: June 2015  Genre: Science