Epigenetics - More than Genes

To me, genealogy is about understanding who we are. Traditional genealogy takes us through historical records, pictures, and stories about our ancestors, allowing us to add names, dates, and places to our family tree. And we strive to understand what our ancestors did, why they did those things, and just what their lives might have been like. As genealogists, we see all this as important to understanding who we are.

In a previous post I speculated about new studies of the DNA of the bacteria in our body, and how the biome contained in our body was essentially inherited and influenced our lives in subtle ways.

Now I learned about another factor in determining who we are, something called epigenetics. The idea is that much of our DNA is dormant until activated. External factors, such as our diet, our environment, lifestyle, etc. can cause various traits to be activated. And even more important is the finding that these traits can be passed on to our children. They aren't part of the DNA you and I study for genealogy. That never changes. But these traits aren't permanent. They can be deactivated. At this point, I don't think scientists understand all the ways epigenetics affects our lives. The field is still very new.

Epigenetics seems to fall in the "nurture" side of the "nature vs. nurture" debate, which is not what we would expect from a genetic field.

I'm sure we'll learn more about this and its implications, if any, for genealogy in the future. My takeaway for now is that our parents and grandparents affected us more than we could have imagined, even if we didn't know them.

My apologies to those who know more than me about genetics and recognize my oversimplifications.