Stories from the Garden Shed
by Merrill Williams
After discovering a trove of old family photos in her late mother’s garden shed, Williams embarks on a years-long genealogical search that leads back to her ancestors who arrived from England in the 1800s. Along the way, she learns their surprising stories, and her own.
Book Bytes:
"Two years after my mother's death spurred my genealogy search, I had filled in many blanks on my family tree. Before I knew it, I was spitting into a vial to submit a DNA sample to another online service that took my lineage far, far back into the mists of early history."
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"I had expected that this tidal wave of information would be profoundly moving to me, but it wasn’t. However epic the scale of my genetic history was, it felt dreadfully impersonal. I had started my family history with the question, who am I? Was I supposed to be satisfied with the answer: J1c7?"
About Merrill
Merrill Williams began her career in publishing as an editorial assistant at Vogue magazine in New York City. After relocating to California to raise a family, she joined the management team at a private athletic club, and a few years later was recruited by a nationally renowned resort as their director of public relations. When she retired from the hotel business, she moved to New England where she published and edited a regional food and lifestyle magazine. Finally retiring for good in 2009, she returned to California to be closer to her family.
Stories from the Garden Shed, a family history, is her first full-length book.