“Reader Views Book Review” of Autumn Leaves by Rachel Jitsawat
- Sharon Duda
- Oct 10
- 2 min read
Originally posted on October 7th, 2025 on Reader Views Book Review.
What begins as a quest for a standard genealogy search on a guided tour through Ancestry.com becomes much more. In Autumn Leaves: A DNA Memoir, author Sharon Beth tells the story of how she discovered her family tree had many more branches and leaves than her immediate family originally thought.
Scouring through a box of film reels handed down by her grandmother, Beth begins her story as she watches history play out before her eyes in grainy motion: her mother as a toddler playing on the beach, her grandmother not far behind. But as Beth watches the reel, she is overcome with the feeling that she is missing something.
Sharon Beth and her family were confident of their lineage: Ukrainian, Ashkenazi Jewish, Syrian, German, and French. Excited to see how her DNA was distributed between these six, Beth was taken aback when her results revealed something that seemed to come so far from left field that she assumed it was a glitch–until her sister’s test revealed correlating results. Determined to unravel the double helix at hand, Beth sets off on a trek of discovery, loss, and determination of what it means to come to terms with an ancestry different than what you have known all your life.
Beth navigates her family’s history through connections with relatives who have lived decades longer than she has, researching and reading books from a time before her own, and facing difficult decisions regarding revelation or silence, all while juggling motherhood, family life, and personal health issues.
Handled with honor and care, the author dedicates time to a telling of each family member’s story and their significance in the tale. Pictures from her own collection and archive enrich the imagery of each family member’s story, even while told through her own lens. Unsure of when or where the mystery will unfold, the reader travels with the author through history, through states, and through the connection the internet provides us.
A book best suited for those who love to dive into the nitty-gritty of genealogy, Autumn Leaves: A DNA Memoir by Sharon Beth is a sweet and suspenseful telling of a family coming together through time, distance, and even a pandemic that makes you wonder what your own family history may be hiding.
Original story posted on October 7th, 2025
