A Nation of Descendants
Politics and the Practice of Genealogy in U.S. History
By Francesca Morgan
320 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 6 halftones
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-6478-1
Published: October 2021 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-6477-4
Published: October 2021 -
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4696-6479-8
Published: September 2021
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- Hardcover $95.00
- E-Book $24.99
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A Nation of Descendants traces Americans’ fascination with tracking family lineage through three centuries. Francesca Morgan examines how specific groups throughout history grappled with finding and recording their forebears, focusing on Anglo-American white, Mormon, African American, Jewish, and Native American people. Morgan also describes how individuals and researchers use genealogy for personal and scholarly purposes, and she explores how local businesspeople, companies like Ancestry.com, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Finding Your Roots series powered the commercialization and commodification of genealogy.
About the Author
Francesca Morgan is associate professor of history at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago and author of Women and Patriotism in Jim Crow America.
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Reviews
"Genealogy and its use can be quite political in nature. In this latest work, Morgan explores how genealogy in the Unites States has evolved over time, especially with its increased popularity in the 21st century. . . . Recommended for historians and students of information and cultural studies for its expansive overview of a niche field."--Library Journal
“Very impressive…this is an important book.”—Honor Sachs, author of Home Rule: Households, Manhood, and National Expansion on the Eighteenth-Century Kentucky Frontier
"Drawing on prodigious archival research, Francesca Morgan traces Americans’ fascination with genealogy from the early republic to the present day."—Scott E. Casper, President, American Antiquarian Society