I was looking through a drawer the other day and came across a set of photos my aunt gave me of my mother’s family, beginning from the 1930s when my grandmother was a young woman. That’s her standing behind the child on the left edge of the photo above.

This picture was taken nearly 100 years ago, and it fascinates me. The man in the center is my great-grandfather, who I never knew, but Gary says I have his eyes. He’s right. What’s more surprising is that I have my grandmother’s gaze. How does that get passed down? Is it nature or nurture?

This week I’ve been diving headfirst into the conditions in Württemberg in the eighteenth century. Let’s just say I never thought I’d be ravenous for sources on early modern Europe, but I can’t tear myself away, because the ancestors of my biographical subject, State Department official Wilbur J. Carr, left there in 1737.

What did they leave? How long had they endured it and how did that change them? What did they bring with them, and what did they pass down to their grandchildren who founded that small Ohio farming community in 1801?

We can assume too much from our ancestry, but I’m not sure we can ignore it.

This week on How We Got Here, on Substack.

https://alisonpeck.substack.com/p/how-much-of-ourselves-do-we-inherit