While the Civil War raged in the East and South, Dakota Indians in Minnesota erupted violently into action against white settlers, igniting the tragic Dakota War of 1862. Hemmed in on a narrow reservation along the upper Minnesota River, the Dakota (Sioux) were frustrated by broken treaties, angered by dishonest agents and traders, and near starvation because of crop failures and late annuity payments.

In The Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. She explores the culture of genealogy buffs, the science of DNA, and the business of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe, all while tracing the story of one woman, her unusual results, and a relentless methodical drive for answers that becomes a thoroughly modern genetic detective story.

Bill Griffeth, longtime genealogy buff, takes a DNA test that has an unexpected outcome. "If the results were correct, it means that the family tree I had spent years documenting was not my own." Bill Undertakes a quest to solve the mystery of his origins, which shakes his sense of identity. As he takes us on his journey, we learn about choices made by his ancestors, parents, and others, and we see Bill measure and weigh his own difficult choices as he confronts the past.

Sources provide information, from which we identify evidence for analysis. A conclusion drawn from sound analysis may then stand as proof. In these two sentences, Elizabeth Shown Mills defines the proper use of sources to come to valid conclusions in historical research. Your Stripped Bare Guide, Mrs. Mills’ latest work on citing and using history sources, is an abbreviated distillation of the evidence analysis she outlines in minute detail in her classic work, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, Fourth Edition (2024).