Family trees

Last week I wrote about the visit paid to us by a cousin, distant yet unexpectedly close. There is a temptation to give in to the addiction of following other branches of the family tree, but I have reservations.

Genes determine our hardware, but our software is cultural and includes language, reading and writing. Our software allows us to access an Internet, a world wide web along whose strands we can, if we so choose, connect with the greatest minds, past and present, across the Planet.