Landgenetics: Finding Traces of Ourselves in the Land

I came across the term Landgenetics while reading through the Landspeaks website, and it immediately made me pause. I’d never heard the word before, but it felt oddly familiar—like a truth I’d always felt, just never had the language to describe.

Landgenetics, as I now understand it, is about the connection between land and lineage. It’s not about DNA in the scientific sense, but about how land holds memory, and how we, in turn, carry those memories within us—whether through stories passed down, places visited in childhood, or even a feeling that hits you when you stand in a place you’ve never been but somehow recognize.

This idea struck a chord with me. Growing up, I often heard bits and pieces of family stories—where my grandparents came from, what the landscape was like, how they lived in rhythm with the land. But those stories always felt like fragments, disconnected from the world I was living in. Landgenetics brought those fragments into focus. It gave me a way to understand that those stories weren’t just nostalgic anecdotes—they were part of who I am.

The Landspeaks platform approaches Landgenetics with such care. It doesn’t force a single definition or limit the concept to any one experience. Instead, it invites people to share what land means to them. And those stories—especially those from Indigenous communities—are incredibly powerful. They speak to histories that were nearly erased, to traditions that survived despite all odds, and to knowledge that’s been held close for generations.

What I find especially meaningful about Landgenetics is that it asks us to listen—not just to people, but to the land itself. To notice. To reflect. To recognize that the land is not just a setting for our lives—it is an active part of our identity, our memory, our becoming.

I remember reading one story on Landspeaks where someone wrote about visiting a lake their ancestors had lived near. They’d never been there before, and yet, standing by the water, they felt a sense of homecoming. That story stayed with me because it reminded me of a similar experience I had while hiking in a forest I’d never visited. I couldn’t explain the feeling at the time, but now I wonder—was that my own experience of Landgenetics?

In a world that often prioritizes progress over remembrance, Landgenetics offers a different path. It doesn’t reject change—but it asks us to carry our past with us. To honor the stories, the pain, the joy, and the resilience held by the land.

Thanks to Landspeaks, I’ve started seeing places not just for what they are now, but for what they’ve held—and who they’ve held—before. Landgenetics, to me, is about finding those traces of ourselves in the land, and realizing the land has never forgotten us.