A Broken Tree – a must-read by Steve Anderson

I’ve spent well over 35 years reading genealogy-related books and articles.  A Broken Tree, by Steve Anderson, is the most fascinating “read” of my entire career. It would be trite and understated to say that it reads like a novel. The book is beyond that. The words pull you in and dare you to read more, as every paragraph makes this family’s story one that the reader must see through to the end. This story couldn’t have been written a decade ago. The advent and social acceptance of inexpensive DNA testing by millions of individuals allows family history to expand beyond the traditional nuclear family to include those whom we would never have considered in times past. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in family history, DNA testing, and a good scandal. I doubt that many families could top this one.

I read an advance electronic copy some months ago, and I couldn’t break away from my screen until the very end. Now I have a hardback copy in my possession. Patty got her hands on it last night and she found it just as entrancing as I did.

The following is the description of the book at Amazon. They have a release date of September 24, and are taking pre-orders. The book is $30, with Amazon Prime free shipping available. Click here or on the illustration to order at Amazon.

All families have stories and all families have secrets. Some stories can be hidden forever. Others come out over time, or suddenly through revelation. With the advent of easy to obtain and cheap DNA kits, more and more people are stumbling across biological secrets they never suspected, sometimes with happy outcomes, but sometimes with shocking results.

In this book, the author provides a real-life example of the shocking revelations and aftermath of DNA investigation. Growing up as one of nine children, Stephen Anderson suspected from a young age that something was amiss. A chance accident, and a small crack in the history of his family broke open. More would come to be revealed as the author sets out on a journey to find answers to his questions. Any reader wondering what a DNA test might reveal will find here one extreme example of family secrets gone awry. As each member learns more about his or her own identity, new family members pop up, fade out, or pass away before relationships can be established or even revealed.

More and more people are undergoing DNA tests and seeking to find long lost relatives though ancestry searches. What they find might upturn all their shared assumptions about family, identity, belonging, and history. Join Stephen as he uncovers his own family’s secrets, the impact they’ve had on his life and his family’s, and what they are all doing now to heal fresh wounds.