Earlier this summer, I mingled among a group of amateur and
professional genealogists at an international Paris conference
exploring the study of Jewish roots. A fascinating question
emerged: is the history of all our ancestors somehow a part of
us? Does genetic memory exist? There are scientific studies
exploring what we inherit in unexpected ways through
epigenetics, a chemical network in our cells that controls
genes, switching them on and off. At the core of this field is
the notion that genes have a memory and that the lives of our
great grandparents – what they breathed, saw and ate – can
directly affect us decades later. Ongoing studies in Sweden are
examining statistics about famine and abundant harvests to
determine the impact on the health of descendants four
generations later. Researchers, for instance, found a
statistical link between the increased longevity of the
descendants of paternal grandfathers who had lived through a
period of famine while young. I’m intrigued by the notion that
generation