Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America
on most orders of $75+
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Brand New
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Hardcover Book Details
- Hardcover
- 304 Pages
- Released: April 30, 2013
- Originally Released: 2013
- Publisher: Harvard University Press
Authors:
Author: | Francois Weil |
Product Description:
Seeking out one's ancestors was a genteel pursuit in the colonial era, when an aristocratic pedigree secured a place in the British Atlantic empire. Genealogy developed into a middle-class diversion in the young republic. But over the next century, knowledge of one's family background came to represent a quasi-scientific defense of elite “Anglo-Saxons” in a nation transformed by immigration and the emancipation of slaves. By the mid-twentieth century, when a new enthusiasm for cultural diversity took hold, the practice of tracing one's family tree had become thoroughly democratized and commercialized.
Today, Ancestry.com attracts over two million members with census records and ship manifests, while popular television shows depict celebrities exploring archives and submitting to DNA testing to learn the stories of their forebears. Further advances in genetics promise new insights as Americans continue their restless pursuit of past and place in an ever-changing world.