Description
Have you dipped into your family’s past? Family trees used to be the exclusive domain of kings and queens, but thanks to the internet and the development of new scientific techniques everyone now seems to be exploring their past.
Ancestry has become big business with DNA home-testing kits now readily available, but how accurate is the science behind them and what if different tests yield different results?
Sometimes when we explore the past we find unpalatable truths, something Angela Findlay writes about in her moving and honest memoir, In My Grandfather’s Shadow, in which she confronts the reality of being the granddaughter of a Nazi general. Angela and her fellow panellists – including Mark Thomas, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at University College London and Simon Keegan, author of DNA of the Celts – will discuss the accuracy of DNA tests and how they can be improved, as well as the impact that uncomfortable discoveries about your family history can have on your life.
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About the Authors
Angela Findlay
Angela Findlay is a professional artist and speaker who has spent much of her career teaching art in prisons. Her time ‘behind bars’ in Germany and later as Arts Coordinator to the Koestler Arts charity inspired her research into intergenerational trauma and, over the last decade, she has been speaking and writing about trauma, guilt, cultures of remembrance and her own Anglo-German roots. In My Grandfather’s Shadow is her first book.
Simon Keegan
Simon Keegan’s fifth and latest book DNA of the Celts is based on his personal genealogy journey. Researching his own Irish family tree, he reached a dead end which DNA testing helped him overcome. Along the way he traced the origins of his clan and related Irish clans, along with Scottish and Welsh families back to the origins of the Celts.
He previously gave talks at Bradford Literature Festival upon the release of his first two books, Pennine Dragon and the Lost Book of King Arthur. He also appeared on BBC Breakfast discussing these. His other books are Karate Jutsu, a history of the Okinawan martial art and Bushido, a complete history of British Jujutsu. Simon works as a magazine editor and events presenter.
About the Academic
Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas is Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at University College London and works mainly on biological and cultural aspects of human evolution. He uses computer simulation and statistical modelling to make inferences from genetic data – including ancient DNA – and archaeological information, on processes such as past migrations and dispersals, natural selection – particularly in response to changes in diet and infectious disease loads – and how demography shapes cultural evolution.
About the Chair
Peg Alexander
Peg Alexander is an award winning broadcaster, presenter and journalist. She is all about the world we live in and life in general – people, politics, the planet and cake. Her speciality is having great conversations, talking freely with people with honesty, humour and candour.
She talks to people live across BBC Radio stations. A former politician in her 20s, she’s a regular on Jeremy Vine on 5 and on Steph’s Packed Lunch and hosts many live events and conferences. She hosts a wide range of podcasts; this summer she is about to start recording a 3rd season of a podcast talking to inspirational nurses, and a new season of her alternative 80s music podcast. She is currently finalising her first book, a how-to book about how to keep weight off long-term after you have lost it.
Broadcasting is her 2nd career. She is an experienced a charity CEO and is an expert on people powered communities. She now combines both careers.
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