Knowing where we come from gives us purpose and passion as we find our way forward
ear Readers,
One of the women I spoke to as I worked on this supplement put the question best. “Some families seem to have a certain distinct trait that spans generations,” she said. “I sometimes wonder: Is that trait the result of family culture and values, or is it actually handed down in our genetic code?”
We all approach life with inheritances from the people who came before us. Some are obvious to all: coloring, height, physical prowess. Some are evident to those who know us even casually: talents, interests, personality. Some are embedded deep into our family culture: the way a home looks, the way we greet guests, our approach to money, how we demonstrate our feelings. And sometimes there are influences or proclivities deeper beneath the surface — layers concealed under so much here-and-now.
We built this supplement to explore and celebrate those links between our lives today and the generations of the past: the way their values, decisions, and strengths affect our own.
s you page through this project, you’ll see that we approached the concept from several directions. In one section, we asked people to tell us about an ancestor whose life work influences their own, and to unravel the subtle threads that connect the two.
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