Person

Francesca Morgan

A Nation of Descendants: Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History

Francesca Morgan

Viewing 1–3 of 3

Detail of faces on a family tree.

The Pocahontas Exception: America’s Ancestor Obsession

The ‘methods and collections’ of genealogists are political because they have a great deal in common with genealogy as a way of doing history.

by Thomas W. Laqueur via London Review of Books on March 30, 2023

Photos of children from the cover of "The Crisis," 1916

‘Anxious for a Mayflower’

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.

by Caroline Fraser via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2022

Drawing of a man looking up at a DNA strand spiraling upwards from him

Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots

From origin stories to blood-purity statutes, we have long enlisted genealogy to serve our own purposes.

by Maya Jasanoff via The New Yorker on May 2, 2022

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