It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree

From the publisher - New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs undergoes a hilarious, heartfelt quest to understand what constitutes family—where it begins and how far it goes—and attempts to untangle the true meaning of the “Family of Humankind.” A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.” That’s enough family members to fill Madison Square Garden four times over. Who are these people, A.J. wondered, and how do I find them? So began Jacobs’s three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history.Jacobs’s journey would take him to all seven continents. He drank beer with a US president, found himself singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. After all, we can choose our friends, but not our family.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for letting me read and review this book which was an interesting read to say for sure. I have to admit I have been on one or two of the genealogy sites trying to find information about my paternal grandfather's line --- we have more information that we can ever read about my paternal grandmother but not Gramps' family is pretty murky at times.

Jacob's journey is interesting and funny as he travels the world and unearths relatives he never dreamed he had. Ther are a lot of biblical references in here (which is not surprising given his last book) but nonetheless I found his journey in the book enjoyable as a whole. I have yet to discover if I am related to my husband and his nine yards of nutballs (even crazier stories than mine at times) but time will tell!!

Definitely suitable for genealogy fans and those people (like me) who tend to read way more non-fiction than novels!)