Random Families

The ready availability of donated sperm and eggs has made possible an entirely new form of family. Children of the same donor and their families, with the help of social media and the internet, can now locate each other and make contact. Based on over 350 interviews with children and parents, Rosanna Hertz and Margaret K. Nelson share how these remarkable relationships woven from tenuous bits of information and fueled by intense curiosity are expanding the possibilities for kinship. Random Families is a highly readable account of life at the intersection of reproductive technology, social media, and the human desire for intimacy and identity.