An ordering of letters: my own personal genome

Human genomics is communicative and has involved a proliferation of life stories. It has been taken up in the making, and unmaking, of stories about identity, ancestry, biography and autobiography. Genome sequencing read in this light can be seen as a technology of life story. However, life stories are also about death, dying, and mortality. Popular media has taken up DNA testing enthusiastically, and direct to consumer testing and sequencing has featured as part of celebrity life story across news, documentary, books and television. Stories about genomic identity narrate stories of origin, and death reinforcing or disrupting other forms of story. In this chapter, the author invites readers to join her in the exploration of the geneticised stories of her own family.