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Brandy Mai, Director of Communications
912.651.2125, or Email

The Genetic Strand: Exploring a Family History Through DNA

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Savannah, GA - October 31, 2007. The Georgia Historical Society invites you to attend a program by noted author Edward Ball. The lecture is part of a six-city promotional tour in support of Ball's newest book, The Genetic Strand. The event takes place Thursday, November 8, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. in Congregation Mickve Israel at 20 E. Gordon Street, Savannah. A book signing will be held immediately following the lecture; books will be available for purchase before and after the presentation.

Edward Ball came into possession of a large secretary that had been in his family for centuries. While restoring the desk, Ball was astounded to discover a secret drawer, and even more so to find nine envelopes hidden within, each with a lock of hair from long-deceased relatives on his father's side. Armed with these remnants of genealogy, Ball reinvents the memoir genre as he analyzes the remaining DNA and discovers just how far science can reveal a family's secrets. Ball integrates his scientific research with the entertaining, eccentric and delightful anecdotal histories of his unique family.

Savannah-native Edward Ball's first book, Slaves in the Family, won the National Book Award. Slaves in the Family is about the lives of Ball's slave-owning ancestors on their rice plantations near Charleston, South Carolina. The book also tells the story of some of the four thousand slaves the Ball family once owned. He has also authored the critically acclaimed Peninsula of Lies and The Sweet Hell Inside: The Rise of an Elite Black Family in the Segregated South.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information please visit www.georgiahistory.com or call us at 912.651.2125.