{"id":2703,"date":"2021-03-05T07:19:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T13:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wilsonld.com\/weblog\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2023-06-03T19:16:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T01:16:02","slug":"the-stranger-in-my-genes-a-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/?p=2703","title":{"rendered":"The Stranger in My Genes, a memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Bill Griffeth, 2016, New England Historic Genealogical Society<\/p>\n<p>I heard about this book at one of my genealogical society lectures and thought I would pick it up as it relates to one of our family member&#8217;s situation.&nbsp; The book is interesting in understanding how someone feels when he finds from a DNA test that his father was not who he thought he was but someone entirely different.<\/p>\n<p>The author&#8217;s mother was still alive when he discovered that she had an affair and he is the product of that indiscretion.&nbsp; Griffeth describes the torment he experienced in dealing with not only the shock of his discovery, but also how to communicate with his mother about the affair.<\/p>\n<p>While the theme of the book is compelling, the book also contains a lot of family history that was no longer valid due to his newly found parentage.&nbsp; The book started out as a private memoir that he was writing for his family so that explains why so much of that material is in the book.&nbsp; That particular part of the book was not very interesting and reminded me of having experienced someone delving into their ancestry at a dinner or cocktail party while my eyes glazed over as I attempted to pay attention.&nbsp; Nonetheless, the book relates the emotional impact of such a discovery on the person affected and it is worth reading.&nbsp;<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"3.0 stars\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wilsonld.com\/weblog\/wp-includes\/images\/stars-3-0.gif\" alt=\"3.0 stars\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Bill Griffeth, 2016, New England Historic Genealogical Society I heard about this book at one of my genealogical society lectures and thought I would pick it up as it relates to one of our family member&#8217;s situation.&nbsp; The book <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/?p=2703\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,16],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-memoir","tag-non-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3317,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions\/3317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}