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In the 1960’s Roy Grinker MD, a very well known psychiatrist who was one of the last people to study with Sigmund Freud, wrote a letter and addressed it “Dear Grinkers”. He sent it to all the Grinkers he knew of. He figured that they were all related and asked them to help put together the pieces of the family puzzle.He sent the letter to the men in my family. My aunt and other people started getting involved and stayed in touch over the decades. In the 1980’s a Grinker living in Boston went to Lithuania, where you can pay to have your family history researched. He found a whole bunch of information, so they all began communicating with each other.Since I was traveling all the time for work as a photographer, it just dawned on me one day that I should create a project about my family and try to find the places where we came from. My aunt gave me all of her information and I started working on the project when I was in related areas. Little by little, I started interviewing people and finding out their histories.You meet and you’re automatically family because you have this shared name. Some of us are clearly blood related and some of us don’t know the exact root, but everyone comes from the same area. Most of the Grinkers are from Lithuania, but on the border with Latvia.73