The search for her hidden Native American ancestry, and the discovery of a North American family history inspired the author to research and publish Revisiting Anne Marie: How an Amerindian Woman of Seventeenth-Century Nova Scotia and a DNA Match Redefine American Heritage. The subject of the book, Anne Marie Rimbault, also referenced as Anne Marie (?), is a woman of 17th-century Port Royal Nova Scotia.  While of Native American (Amerindian) ancestry, as discovered by the book's author in 2006 by way of her "Native American" DNA test result, Anne Marie Rimbault was simply a noble farmer's wife who exists in the records, as limited as they are for the period, as married (first) to the unknown Pinet, then (second) to Rene Rimbault -- and it is the excitement of her discovery, and the exploration of her family's diverse Mi'kmaq-Acadian cultural identity that inspires the book's readers.  Revisiting Anne Marie offers readers an example of how to apply all three information sources: DNA, genealogy, and history, to successfully search for identity, using the author's experience as a model.  Revisiting Anne Marie is available through the CreateSpace (formerly Book Surge) publishing and distribution channel.  Visit https://www.createspace.com/1000240667 to order your copy of Revisiting Anne Marie.

 A search for identity must include DNA test results, a traditional genealogy paper-trail, and a personal family history to be complete.  When coupled with the events of history, a genealogy that shows a family abandoning one home for another a thousand miles away, suddenly makes sense.  A family line that includes an unexpected surname, or none at all, may be examined more thoroughly with a DNA test result in hand.  A surname study, that traces the male descendants of a family patriarch, as a surname is passed from father-to-son across generations, takes on a life of its own when an unexpected DNA test result is introduced into the mix.  A traditional paper-trail genealogy is turned around in its tracks when a DNA test result causes descendants to re-examine a prior conclusion about ancestry.  To be comprehensive and complete, a search for identity cannot ignore any of these factors. 

DNA tests reveal specific, genetic, aspects of your identity, as related to maternal-line and paternal-line ancestries, or as influenced by all of your ancestors.  DNA surname projects are geared towards helping DNA test participants discover matches and trends-- among individuals who share the same maternal ancestors, descend from the same family patriarchs, or who come from the same geographic areas.  DNA test results can be informative -- and help you learn about the origins of your earliest ancestors, but they don't tell the whole story of your identity.

Family genealogies, or family lines, are important to the knowledge of ancestry.  A family genealogy may include siblings and their parents, aunts and uncles and cousins, paternal and maternal grandparents, and a variety of close and distant relatives, great-grandparents, and so on, until a family tree has thousands of family surnames mapped across a dozen or more generations. To find proof that a particular marriage occurred between two individuals at a specific place and time in your family's history is exciting, and can reveal important relationships that occurred in your family's past, but a marriage record, by itself, won't give you the whole picture of your identity.  In certain cases, genealogy may actually interfere with an accurate picture of identity, especially if genealogies have been developed by way of estimation, in absence of records.  In such instances, geographic, historical, and DNA evidence must be consulted.

Published histories, oral traditions, archives, maps, and records reveal the geographic, political, social, and economic aspects of the town, city, region, or country where your family lived its life. Maps, newspaper articles, census records, and an accounting of land-leases, purchases, and the names of geographical features may provide substantial clues, if partnered with other family surname information.  A historical timeline that marks the years when wars were fought, when new countries emerged, when political boundaries were decided and new leaders elected may characterize the events of history but will not answer all of your questions about your own identity.

Discovering identity by way of DNA testing and genealogy with the added perspective of history is a balancing act.  You must research all aspects to gain a complete picture of who you are.