On Roots and Burial

Roots are a cipher for ancestors, the fundament of the family tree. Roots also suggest attachment to a particular place, the site where we were born and where our ancestors remain buried, like the unseen part of the plant. Contemporary conditions of globalization have complicated these meanings of the root metaphor. More and more frequently, locating one’s deepest ancestors—and even those closest to the surface—requires not just a local or national map but a world atlas. Through genealogical research or DNA analysis, their identification has become more certain and the points on our personal maps more far flung.