The first time I heard an Irish folk tune, I thought "this is what music is supposed to sound like." The lilt and the cadence touched me. I've felt that must have been an ancestral memory embedded in my DNA.
I think it's a thing. But I'm really curious how this can be proved one way or another. I'm seeing data on epigenetic studies that suggest that certain types of fear seem to be passed down in mice (and potentially also already quite clear holocaust victim families etc.) Mice that were trained to fear a specific smell had pups who were born to fear a specific smell, for instance. There's a bit of a jump from that to being in love with Ireland, but they just haven't come up with a good mouse test for Ireland yet, IMO.
Thanks Nancy, agree hundred percent with you that at the moment we cannot scientifically prove it conclusively either way. As we discover more and learn more about the human brain, I am sure that more will be revealed over the coming decades. Whether this can be proven for sure is another thing, for the time being its sits on the shelf as a sixth sense.
This one really resonates. I've always felt such a deep connection to the Maritimes in Canada, long before I knew I had a rich ancestral history in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I've spent the last few summers in Prince Edward Island and felt an almost magnetic pull, like I never wanted to leave. I recently discovered that some of my ancestors immigrated to the island from England, I didn't think I has a connection there. Strangely enough, I don't feel this same connection with my Quebec roots. Even though I spent every summer in Montreal as a kid, and my father and last name are both French Canadian, I've always felt like an outsider there. Maybe I need to go back knowing how far back my ancestry goes in Quebec and see if it feels any different this time around.
Thanks for sharing that with Emily. That magnetic pull to certain locations can be strong at times. I had that ‘feeling’ of being at home when I visited Dublin for the first time. It was only later that I discovered long standing family roots there.
I find this more than interesting Paul, as I have experienced it. About 20 years ago, my daughter and I went on a bike ride around Wales, spending just one night at Haverfordwest, where my 2x great grandparents were from. I've often wondered whether the feeling I had there of coming home, was just me projecting my feelings. But it seemed very real to me that this was an important place to me, and though there was nothing about it that particularly appealed to me from a tourism point of view, for many months after returning home, I felt the need to pack up and move there. It felt that this was where I belonged.
The ultimate proof of ancestral memory is the near universal human loathing of snakes. Some think that this is a genetic based trait passed down from the earliest days of mammals finally out competing reptiles.
When the family saw Jurassic Park at the theatre release, I might have cheered when T Rex ate the lawyer, but my three elementary school children screamed and ran out of the theatre.
I definitely believe it's real...My father's family suffered a great deal of trauma during WWII (so did my mum's to a lesser extent - her dad collapsed from a major stroke after VE day celebrations). I had grown up hearing the stories from my dad and grandmother - they suffered from severe anxiety for as long as I could remember.
When I found pre-War photos of my dad's family in the early 2000s, it triggered something inside me that took my natural tendency to anxiety to the next level. I saw a counsellor when things became extreme, and he concluded after a few sessions that I was likely suffering from intergenerational trauma. Incidentally, I physically resemble my dad and paternal grandmother - in one photo of the latter from the 1930s, it's uncanny. I wonder if that clear genetic connection is also part of the root of my anxiety. Of course, at least some of it could be my own natural tendency towards anything history related - I've always felt a strong connection to the past.
Unrelated to me personally, but of equal importance - I have seen the effects of intergenerational trauma all around me as a result of the residential school system imposed on the Indigenous population here in Canada, alongside the more general government policies that sought to assimilate rather than acknowledge the forms of government and cultures that already existed. The Reconciliation process here has revealed much that is difficult, but also explains a great deal and makes it clear, at least to me, that trauma can indeed be handed down genetically.
Thank you so much for sharing your own story with me Teresa as well as your life experiences of the school system in Canada. It’s by sharing these examples, however difficult they might be, that can help us to understand more about how we can inherit much more than just physical things from our ancestors.
Yep, absolutely fair point. Snakes and heights don’t bother me at all, but thunder and lightning send me into a cold sweat. Irrational fears are very real.
To the point about ancestral stories… forgive the self promo, but, Projectkin.org had a terrific talk on exactly this point from Rhonda Lauritzen last October (see /specials) and coming up next Thursday is a talk with Jennifer Holik of ancestralsouls you won’t want to miss! (See /events)
I've written about this already. During my time in New York City, I lived very close to where my ancestors lived a few hundred years earlier. This involved ancestors on both my paternal and maternal sides, separated by about 100 years. I believe they speak to us in ways we don't understand.
When I was a teen, I visited Germany with my family. I was already into genealogy then. When we drove thru southeastern Bavaria with its mountains and incredible painted houses, I felt a deep sense of "being home" the whole time. I knew my great-grandparents were from Bavaria but didn't know where. I have since learned they came from a different part. But I am still waiting to see if further research will show my family came from the southeastern part.
Thanks for sharing your story with me Anne. We don’t always know the answers, they may not be apparent at the time. Further research might well lead you to discover that you do indeed have roots in the area that you travelled through.
Thanks Paul, for bringing this up. I am discovering more and more the "lines" in my family that show strong characteristics. One line (the one I just wrote about for the storytelling challenge: Military Marvel) is what I call my suicide line, because so many of them killed themselves. There is also a gardener line, a traveller line, and so on. The suicide line is fascinating because of repeated trauma, abuse and mental illness. But it is a bit scary too...
Any kind of trauma or inherited trauma is a monumental thing to process and some people are too afraid to look these things in the eye, so they remain locked away forever. The healing process takes lots of forms and each of us has to find our own way there.
When I see this sort of question, it always makes me think of NZ longfin eels which no doubt sounds bizarre BUT ... NZ longfin eels are endemic to New Zealand. They start their life near Tonga. After their parents mate, the resulting eggs are left floating in the sea somewhere near Tonga. When the elvers emerge, how do they know to swim all the way to the rivers and lakes of New Zealand? And when they get towards the end of their life, how do they know to swim 5000km back to the Tonga Trench to mate and then die? . Clearly there is some sort of intergenerational message going on here.
That’s incredible Jane. There must be something far more powerful than the human brain can understand going on here. Which also brings me back to all the stories I have heard before about humans. One day we will be able to unlock all the answers
I've felt this ancestral memory in many places, especially in Europe. Although while I believe some of my "woo woo" experiences were ancestral (inherited memory, trauma, etc.) some of it was past life experiences rearing their kind or ugly heads. Nothing like driving around Paris and having an out of body experience with panic to later discover you had a horrific past life experience there. But having taken the spiritual journey I have I wonder if I wasn't healing the women in my line as well from the same experience I'd had in another life.
You asked, "When those in our family have experienced unbearable traumas or have suffered immense grief, the feelings can be overwhelming and it’s human nature; when pain is too great, for the human body to suppress it. Yet when we block the feelings, we unknowingly stunt the natural healing process. Are we then storing that pain and grief for a future generation? Can that pain resurface as symptoms that are difficult to explain in our descendants?"
My answer is absolutely yes. I'm writing a book about my own experiences with my WWII Navy grandparents trauma and how I was living it out with my late Dutch husband. Interestingly that husband was 14 years old and had parents who were young adults during WWII in Rotterdam. His mother carried her trauma beyond the grave and showed up to ask me to help her heal from the other side. That's another story -which I'm pretty sure I posted on my own Substack.
But yes, we carry our ancestors pain, trauma, joy, unfinished business, dreams unfulfilled and we act them out in ways that are so decontextualized we don't realize it. Until we take time to discover it. My big ah-ha moment which threw me into a deep exploration of my grandparents trauma was using a Genogram. That tool helped me see what I'd been missing and then allow me to start exploring other issues in my life and patterns in my grandparents lives. Crazy stuff but identifying and healing all this changed my life.
Hi Jennifer thank you so much for sharing with me your own very personal experiences of ancestral memory. I really do think that some people are just more "tuned in" to these very real experiences. I have had many experiences myself, some I have shared before but others I have kept to myself as these are very personal experiences. But in essence, I am very much a "believer". Of course coming from a research background where everything has to be proven to within an inch of its life, it can be difficult to rationalise something that can't be proven.
I would be really interested to read your book once its published, I am very interested in the subject, but not from a science perspective, I am more interested in hearing real-life stories of what people have experienced. I am also interested to see how we think this past traumas and inherited emotions influence our decision making today. I have written about that as well.
All fascinating stuff and I really appreciate you taking the time to share with me your thoughts.
Hi Paul. I hope to have my next book out in early 2026. We shall see. I have written about several ancestral experiences on Substack as well.
With the ancestral healing work I do and military work - I encourage people to step off the paper trail now and then. Not everything can be sourced by a piece of paper. As consciousness raises on the planet and more people are doing inner work and tuning into their intuition and ancestors, it's important to acknowledge that when something feels true, we might not always find the paper trail to "prove" it.
Case in point - my ex did a lot of mental and emotional abuse on my three boys and I. Can I prove it with paper - no. But I can see it in the beliefs, behaviors, and patterns of the four of us. Those things I can document but where they came from - no paper trail exists. same in many of our families with abuse that took place or alcoholism, anger, etc. Yet it all trickles down and often becomes decontextualized. I think too many in the research field discount these types of things because they are so programmed to believe you always have to prove it with paper. You don't heal yourself or a lineage that way with such a limited boxed in mindset. Just my opinion.
The first time I heard an Irish folk tune, I thought "this is what music is supposed to sound like." The lilt and the cadence touched me. I've felt that must have been an ancestral memory embedded in my DNA.
I think it's a thing. But I'm really curious how this can be proved one way or another. I'm seeing data on epigenetic studies that suggest that certain types of fear seem to be passed down in mice (and potentially also already quite clear holocaust victim families etc.) Mice that were trained to fear a specific smell had pups who were born to fear a specific smell, for instance. There's a bit of a jump from that to being in love with Ireland, but they just haven't come up with a good mouse test for Ireland yet, IMO.
Thanks Nancy, agree hundred percent with you that at the moment we cannot scientifically prove it conclusively either way. As we discover more and learn more about the human brain, I am sure that more will be revealed over the coming decades. Whether this can be proven for sure is another thing, for the time being its sits on the shelf as a sixth sense.
This one really resonates. I've always felt such a deep connection to the Maritimes in Canada, long before I knew I had a rich ancestral history in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I've spent the last few summers in Prince Edward Island and felt an almost magnetic pull, like I never wanted to leave. I recently discovered that some of my ancestors immigrated to the island from England, I didn't think I has a connection there. Strangely enough, I don't feel this same connection with my Quebec roots. Even though I spent every summer in Montreal as a kid, and my father and last name are both French Canadian, I've always felt like an outsider there. Maybe I need to go back knowing how far back my ancestry goes in Quebec and see if it feels any different this time around.
Thanks for sharing that with Emily. That magnetic pull to certain locations can be strong at times. I had that ‘feeling’ of being at home when I visited Dublin for the first time. It was only later that I discovered long standing family roots there.
I find this more than interesting Paul, as I have experienced it. About 20 years ago, my daughter and I went on a bike ride around Wales, spending just one night at Haverfordwest, where my 2x great grandparents were from. I've often wondered whether the feeling I had there of coming home, was just me projecting my feelings. But it seemed very real to me that this was an important place to me, and though there was nothing about it that particularly appealed to me from a tourism point of view, for many months after returning home, I felt the need to pack up and move there. It felt that this was where I belonged.
I do really believe that there is something in this @Jennifer Jones
The ultimate proof of ancestral memory is the near universal human loathing of snakes. Some think that this is a genetic based trait passed down from the earliest days of mammals finally out competing reptiles.
I agree. We have an in built something that tells us to be wary of the things that can potentially kill us - snakes and spiders are two good examples.
When the family saw Jurassic Park at the theatre release, I might have cheered when T Rex ate the lawyer, but my three elementary school children screamed and ran out of the theatre.
Funny, with me it was exactly the other way round. I was terrified, but all the kids in the cinema just laughed.
I definitely believe it's real...My father's family suffered a great deal of trauma during WWII (so did my mum's to a lesser extent - her dad collapsed from a major stroke after VE day celebrations). I had grown up hearing the stories from my dad and grandmother - they suffered from severe anxiety for as long as I could remember.
When I found pre-War photos of my dad's family in the early 2000s, it triggered something inside me that took my natural tendency to anxiety to the next level. I saw a counsellor when things became extreme, and he concluded after a few sessions that I was likely suffering from intergenerational trauma. Incidentally, I physically resemble my dad and paternal grandmother - in one photo of the latter from the 1930s, it's uncanny. I wonder if that clear genetic connection is also part of the root of my anxiety. Of course, at least some of it could be my own natural tendency towards anything history related - I've always felt a strong connection to the past.
Unrelated to me personally, but of equal importance - I have seen the effects of intergenerational trauma all around me as a result of the residential school system imposed on the Indigenous population here in Canada, alongside the more general government policies that sought to assimilate rather than acknowledge the forms of government and cultures that already existed. The Reconciliation process here has revealed much that is difficult, but also explains a great deal and makes it clear, at least to me, that trauma can indeed be handed down genetically.
Thank you so much for sharing your own story with me Teresa as well as your life experiences of the school system in Canada. It’s by sharing these examples, however difficult they might be, that can help us to understand more about how we can inherit much more than just physical things from our ancestors.
Yep, absolutely fair point. Snakes and heights don’t bother me at all, but thunder and lightning send me into a cold sweat. Irrational fears are very real.
To the point about ancestral stories… forgive the self promo, but, Projectkin.org had a terrific talk on exactly this point from Rhonda Lauritzen last October (see /specials) and coming up next Thursday is a talk with Jennifer Holik of ancestralsouls you won’t want to miss! (See /events)
I've written about this already. During my time in New York City, I lived very close to where my ancestors lived a few hundred years earlier. This involved ancestors on both my paternal and maternal sides, separated by about 100 years. I believe they speak to us in ways we don't understand.
Thanks Bill I definitely agree with you 👍
When I was a teen, I visited Germany with my family. I was already into genealogy then. When we drove thru southeastern Bavaria with its mountains and incredible painted houses, I felt a deep sense of "being home" the whole time. I knew my great-grandparents were from Bavaria but didn't know where. I have since learned they came from a different part. But I am still waiting to see if further research will show my family came from the southeastern part.
Thanks for sharing your story with me Anne. We don’t always know the answers, they may not be apparent at the time. Further research might well lead you to discover that you do indeed have roots in the area that you travelled through.
Thanks Paul, for bringing this up. I am discovering more and more the "lines" in my family that show strong characteristics. One line (the one I just wrote about for the storytelling challenge: Military Marvel) is what I call my suicide line, because so many of them killed themselves. There is also a gardener line, a traveller line, and so on. The suicide line is fascinating because of repeated trauma, abuse and mental illness. But it is a bit scary too...
Any kind of trauma or inherited trauma is a monumental thing to process and some people are too afraid to look these things in the eye, so they remain locked away forever. The healing process takes lots of forms and each of us has to find our own way there.
Liked your piece, thought you might resonate - I serve the song beneath the traps—the bass that bombings couldn’t own. https://thehiddenclinic.substack.com/p/what-i-found-in-the-smoke-that-the
Loved this thank you 😊
When I see this sort of question, it always makes me think of NZ longfin eels which no doubt sounds bizarre BUT ... NZ longfin eels are endemic to New Zealand. They start their life near Tonga. After their parents mate, the resulting eggs are left floating in the sea somewhere near Tonga. When the elvers emerge, how do they know to swim all the way to the rivers and lakes of New Zealand? And when they get towards the end of their life, how do they know to swim 5000km back to the Tonga Trench to mate and then die? . Clearly there is some sort of intergenerational message going on here.
That’s incredible Jane. There must be something far more powerful than the human brain can understand going on here. Which also brings me back to all the stories I have heard before about humans. One day we will be able to unlock all the answers
Same with Scottish salmon
I've felt this ancestral memory in many places, especially in Europe. Although while I believe some of my "woo woo" experiences were ancestral (inherited memory, trauma, etc.) some of it was past life experiences rearing their kind or ugly heads. Nothing like driving around Paris and having an out of body experience with panic to later discover you had a horrific past life experience there. But having taken the spiritual journey I have I wonder if I wasn't healing the women in my line as well from the same experience I'd had in another life.
You asked, "When those in our family have experienced unbearable traumas or have suffered immense grief, the feelings can be overwhelming and it’s human nature; when pain is too great, for the human body to suppress it. Yet when we block the feelings, we unknowingly stunt the natural healing process. Are we then storing that pain and grief for a future generation? Can that pain resurface as symptoms that are difficult to explain in our descendants?"
My answer is absolutely yes. I'm writing a book about my own experiences with my WWII Navy grandparents trauma and how I was living it out with my late Dutch husband. Interestingly that husband was 14 years old and had parents who were young adults during WWII in Rotterdam. His mother carried her trauma beyond the grave and showed up to ask me to help her heal from the other side. That's another story -which I'm pretty sure I posted on my own Substack.
But yes, we carry our ancestors pain, trauma, joy, unfinished business, dreams unfulfilled and we act them out in ways that are so decontextualized we don't realize it. Until we take time to discover it. My big ah-ha moment which threw me into a deep exploration of my grandparents trauma was using a Genogram. That tool helped me see what I'd been missing and then allow me to start exploring other issues in my life and patterns in my grandparents lives. Crazy stuff but identifying and healing all this changed my life.
Hi Jennifer thank you so much for sharing with me your own very personal experiences of ancestral memory. I really do think that some people are just more "tuned in" to these very real experiences. I have had many experiences myself, some I have shared before but others I have kept to myself as these are very personal experiences. But in essence, I am very much a "believer". Of course coming from a research background where everything has to be proven to within an inch of its life, it can be difficult to rationalise something that can't be proven.
I would be really interested to read your book once its published, I am very interested in the subject, but not from a science perspective, I am more interested in hearing real-life stories of what people have experienced. I am also interested to see how we think this past traumas and inherited emotions influence our decision making today. I have written about that as well.
All fascinating stuff and I really appreciate you taking the time to share with me your thoughts.
Hi Paul. I hope to have my next book out in early 2026. We shall see. I have written about several ancestral experiences on Substack as well.
With the ancestral healing work I do and military work - I encourage people to step off the paper trail now and then. Not everything can be sourced by a piece of paper. As consciousness raises on the planet and more people are doing inner work and tuning into their intuition and ancestors, it's important to acknowledge that when something feels true, we might not always find the paper trail to "prove" it.
Case in point - my ex did a lot of mental and emotional abuse on my three boys and I. Can I prove it with paper - no. But I can see it in the beliefs, behaviors, and patterns of the four of us. Those things I can document but where they came from - no paper trail exists. same in many of our families with abuse that took place or alcoholism, anger, etc. Yet it all trickles down and often becomes decontextualized. I think too many in the research field discount these types of things because they are so programmed to believe you always have to prove it with paper. You don't heal yourself or a lineage that way with such a limited boxed in mindset. Just my opinion.