If you hang out here at BBB with any regularity, you know that I'm an adoptive mom as well as an avid genealogist.  I'm so into family history, in fact, that I'm currently working on becoming accredited as a professional genealogist in two regions: U.S. Southwest and U.S. Great Lakes.  COVID has slowed the process, but I'm hoping to finish my testing this year.  I'm not a big tv watcher (I'd rather read, thank you very much!); however, I have been known to binge-watch shows like Finding Your Roots, Genealogy Roadshow, Relative Race, and Who Do You Think You Are?.  I've been quietly researching my adopted daughter's birth family's genealogy since she was born.  Bottom line?  I go nuts over anything related to family history: research, DNA, adoption reunions, family heirlooms, passed-down stories, etc.  Given all that, I was immediately drawn to The Lost Family by Libby Copeland.  How could I resist a book that promised to tick off so many of my favorite reading boxes? 

The book tells the story of Alice Collins Plebuch, a woman who took a DNA test that returned results that were unexpected and perplexing.  To say the least.  The confusing information led her on a journey that required painstaking research, uncomfortable questions, and an almost complete overhaul of everything she knew about herself and her family.  Copeland uses Plebuch's incredible story as a framework for discussing the relatively new technology of DNA home-testing, which allows anyone to spit in a tube, upload very personal information to a very public forum, and share all the secrets hiding in their genes with the world.  While doing so has led to joyous reunions between biological family members, answers to heart-wrenching questions, and even the bringing to justice of the Golden State Killer, they've also been the catalyst for broken hearts, renewed feelings of abandonment, privacy breaches, and the revelation of long-buried secrets that maybe should have been kept that way.  Copeland poses some deep, thought-provoking questions on the subject like: