Book Review and Author Interview: Ancestoring: Understanding Records, Family, and Ourselves by Darcie Hind Posz
Ancestoring: Understanding Records, Family, and Ourselves by Darcie Hind Posz (Genealogical Publishing Company, 2026)
In 1926, Carl Jung concluded a lecture to a literary society in Augsburg with the claim that the archetypes buried in our collective unconscious carry ‘the deposit of man’s whole ancestral experience,’ which genealogist Hank Jones later interpreted in Psychic Roots as meaning that ‘we inherit the wisdom of the experience of our ancestors without ourselves having personal experience.’ This is one of many thought-provoking influences and references that appear in this exciting new book from accomplished US genealogist and writer Darcie Hind Posz. Its eighteen chapters are alive with ideas and inspiration. I found it fascinating and have found myself returning repeatedly, pondering how I can apply the thoughts and examples to my own family history. Completely different from many of the genealogy books out there, Ancestoring brings influences from the current memoir or ancestral self-discovery vein, which has prevailed in publishing in recent years.
In her preface, Hind Posz defines Ancestoring as, ‘The observation and collection of methodologies, theories, and solutions to everyday items as related to genealogy.’ The entire book involves fresh ideas and inspires the reader to look anew at their own family tree and the assumptions they’ve made about their ancestors. From its title to the use of examples (the section on source analysis, in particular, is revelatory) and quotations from a wide range of genealogical papers, this is something original and illuminating.
The book’s dedication quotes from William B Saxbe, Jr., who refers to ‘thoughtful genealogists’. That appears to be the target audience here. If you consider yourself a ‘thoughtful genealogist’, then, without doubt, this is the book for you.
Interview with Darcie Hind Posz, CG®, FASG
What was your background before writing this book?
I have been working in libraries and as a genealogist for twenty years. I have been a verifying genealogist for several lineage societies. I have worked as an editor for a publication. I have volunteered. When I was not doing that, I was finding time to write, which I enjoy.
I hadn’t heard the term “Ancestoring” before this. How did you come up with the title of the book?
At first, I wanted a field guide or something like a field guide for all of these methods that I had used over the years that worked for me. I liked ancestoring to describe it because it was not strict, but a bit whimsical and in that grey area. I had the idea in 2017 originally to use pictures to describe how I visualized solving genealogical problems I carried with me, and I had begun to collect notebooks full of doodles. During the pandemic, I came back to the notebooks because I was running out of projects. It kept getting bigger, so I made myself commit to finding a publisher open to a book that is hard to describe.
This is your fourth book. How does it differ from your previous titles?
This book is different because I feel like I got to keep my voice in it. When you write a genealogy, you are an observer of a family; your tone is kept in check with the documents formulating the narrative. When you write about a region, again, you are kept in check by the resources you are discussing. Both are pointing the reader to resources and then a family narrative to evaluate and observe. But getting to the part where you have a final family narrative to publish or distribute is not that simple. There are rabbit holes, diatribes, blind alleys, and other things (like losing an entire line in the pedigree), where they have no room in the final product. I wanted to show that and work in progress because what didn’t work for my genealogical problem may work for someone else’s.
In Part Two (Understanding Families), you write: “Rather than judging our subjects, which will likely flatline the part of our brain we use to understand them, observe and evaluate their actions.” This approach strongly resonates with my own work in personal family history research, as well as what I encourage in my clients. Do you think genealogists are shifting in how they approach their ancestors (e.g. those considered “black sheep”) compared to how family history was typically handled in the recent past?
I hope they are. It is hard. It would be nice to have deeper conversations about topics like this. It is easy to judge swiftly when an ancestor does something and to label it. But we need to think of those we study not as something like a document. As their lifetime progressed, they shifted and changed. Think about how you have done things during your life. Maybe you did something that seemed like a good idea at the time, and now you regret it. We all do it. Those we study in genealogy did the same. That is why I liked to frame it as withholding judgment, so that you do not know yet if they are the good or bad person in the story. Just watch longer.
In Part Three (Understanding Ourselves), you touch on genetic genealogy, writing that, “DNA will overturn many previously proven or established pedigrees.” What is the most powerful discovery you have made through DNA research?
I was sure of my lineage until DNA overturned it, and although DNA is this wonderful evidence available now, just like documentation, we will have to wait as more of it becomes available by waiting for more people to take DNA tests and providing a larger pool for those of certain ethnicities. I will spend the rest of my life combing through match lists to see if there is a hint of that line! Since it will be a lifelong process, I will need to keep up-to-date on the technology and methods for it.
What are your future plans? Can we expect more books from you?
More books, of course! 🙂
Darcie Hind Posz, CG®, FASG, is an author, genealogist, and researcher, and has been a board-certified genealogist since 2013. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists. Darcie Hind Posz is an author, genealogist and researcher. Posz authored three other books: Chicago Stones: A Genealogy of Acquisition, Influence & Scandal; Recast: Vital Events Published in Variety in 1918 and 1919; and Research in Hawaii, part of the National Genealogical Society’s Research in the State series, was published in 2024. Her extensive bibliography can be found at her website, darciehindposz.com.
