Meeting the Ghosts in my DNA
Using family tree research to understand my epigenome
When I was a kid and would visit my grandma, I was interested in why she had stacks of used margarine containers in a cupboard in the kitchen. I learned from my dad about how my grandma had lived through the Great Depression, and how she saved things that might be useful. I loved my grandma dearly, and I understood implicitly what my dad was getting at because I also saved things. I would save my Halloween candy for months and I had various collections of rocks, baseball cards, and more.
Could I have inherited my hoarding tendencies from my grandma, even though she acquired her behavior during her lifetime? The science of epigenetics suggests just this.
As a family tree researcher, I love to find stories about my ancestors. I do it out of curiosity. I love to find photos and use documents to build a profile of each person. Sometimes in the documents or stories, I find evidence of hard times. All of my grandparents lived through the Great Depression. A great-grandmother was orphaned and experienced severe burns as a child. Many of my ancestors experienced war, immigration, poverty, abuse, alcoholism, or sometimes combinations of these. Those are just the stories that I know about.
