Everyone-in every place and culture-has ancestors. David Hertzel draws on his interviews with more than thirty people from a variety of cultural backgrounds across the United States and around the world to provide an engaging foray into the nature of relationships between people today and their ancestors, exploring what ancestry means in the modern world.

Ancestors: who we are and where we come from -- Sacred is as sacred does -- "Who are your ancestors?" -- Every person is an ancestor, a descendant, and an individual -- The ancestral narrative -- Ancestors in time and space -- Ancestors, good and bad: pruning branches -- Reciprocal arrangements.