The Misplaced Household: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are

A deeply reported have a look at the rise of house genetic testing and the seismic shock it has had on particular person lives
You swab your cheek or spit right into a vial, then ship it away to a lab someplace. Weeks later you get a report which may inform you the place your ancestors got here from or in the event you carry sure genetic dangers. Or the report may reveal a long-buried household secret and upend your total sense of identification. Quickly a lark turns into an obsession, an incessant want to seek out solutions to questions on the core of your being, like “Who am I?” and “The place did I come from?” Welcome to the age of house genetic testing.
In The Misplaced Household,journalist Libby Copeland investigates what occurs after we embark on an enormous social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. Copeland explores the tradition of family tree buffs, the science of DNA, and the enterprise of corporations like Ancestry and 23andMe, all whereas tracing the story of 1 lady, her uncommon outcomes, and a relentless methodical drive for solutions that turns into a completely trendy genetic detective story.
The Misplaced Household delves into the various lives which have been irrevocably modified by house DNA assessments—a expertise that represents the top of household secrets and techniques. There are the adoptees who’ve used the assessments to seek out their start dad and mom; donor-conceived adults who immediately uncover they’ve greater than fifty siblings; a whole bunch of 1000’s of Individuals who uncover their fathers aren’t biologically associated to them, a phenomenon so frequent it is named a “non-paternity occasion”; and people who’re left to grapple with their conceptions of race and ethnicity when their true ancestral histories are found. All through these accounts, Copeland explores the impulse towards genetic essentialism and raises the query of how a lot our genes ought to get to inform us about who we’re. With greater than thirty million individuals having undergone house DNA testing, the reply to that query is extra essential than ever.
Gripping and masterfully advised, The Misplaced Household is a spectacular e book on an enormous, well timed topic.