In postmodern existence genealogies may seem antiquated forms of reckoning time, since the present is all there is (Boyarin, 1994; Harvey, 1989); but the ideology of genetic inheritance encapsulated in one’s DNA crystallizes the past and the future into the present lived experience of the now, compressing time into an everlasting present fraught with fear of falling ill in the future that can be clearly seen in these narratives, as well as in most all other interviews I have conducted (Finkler, 2000).

(Kaja Finkler "Family, Kinship, Memory and Temporality in the Age of the New Genetics")