Family: Genetic memories?

Family: Genetic memories?

Do you feel a connection to your ancestors in a fundamental way?

Genetic memory is what we call that “feeling” that some individuals have, where they connect with their ancestors in some strange or unusual way.

Today, such people may be of different religions and nationalities than their ancestors, but still feel an unusual connection – often since childhood – to those ancestors who lived very different lives.

Biologically, we are all links in a chain to our past generations. Can these biological links connect us to our ancestors in different ways?

Writes journalist and author Doreen Carvajal:

I’m intrigued by the notion that generations pass on particular survival skills and, perhaps, an unconscious sense of identity that stands the test of centuries. In the case of my own Catholic Carvajal family, I wonder what prompted them to guard the secret of their Sephardic Jewish identity for generations long after the Spanish Inquisition that prompted them to flee to Costa Rica in Central America.

There is a field of science – epigenetics – that believes that genes can hold memories. A book – The Ancestor Syndrome by Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger – demonstrates what she calls “‘invisible loyalty’ owed to previous generations,” via case studies.

Have you ever felt a mysterious connection to an ancestor – or a way of life – that you simply cannot explain, yet the feeling is very real? Share your experiences below.

Comments

The email address is kept private and will not be shown

  • BAJZÁTH

    September 24, 2012

    I am Zsuzsanna Bajzáth. My father János Bajzáth and grandfather András Bajzáth. Our birth-place Tiszafüred.