[Roger:]  "Do you know of any research linking memories to  DNA?  If that's theoretically possible, it would perhaps offer an alternative explanation for reincarnation.  If we can inherit talents, why not memories of our ancestors as well?  Or at least those memories that caused strong psychic imprints.  It might explain why some of us have powerfully strong fears or attractions that are not otherwise accounted for in our own lives."
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In her bestseller, "Embraced by the Light," Betty Eade's NDE teaches her about DNA memory:

"I learned that all thoughts and experiences in our lives are recorded...in our cells, so that, not only is each cell imprinted with a genetic coding.  It is also imprinted with every experience we have ever had.  Further I understood that these memories are passed down through the genetic coding to our children.  These memories then account for many of the passed on traits in families, such as addictive tendencies, fears, strengths, and so on.  I ALSO LEARNED THAT WE DO NOT HAVE REPEATED LIVES ON THIS EARTH; WHEN WE SEEM TO "REMEMBER" A PAST LIFE, WE ARE ACTUALLY RECALLING MEMORIES CONTAINED IN THE CELLS (p. 93)." 

Perhaps, this notion of DNA memory needs to be understood in terms of Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious, which in turn is similar to the most commonly accepted theory of how clairvoyance and telepathy wor--i. e. as "an unknown form of energy which does not cross space but which reaches inward to the essential psyche of a person.   At this center a transpersonal mode is reached where all humans and perhaps all reality are united (John J. Heaney, "The Sacred and the Psychic, " p. 20)."

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake argues that the DNA molecule cannot contain all the information essential to the organism's formation; rather, DNA is a finely tuned receptor which taps into the information contained in the "morphogenetic field" of that organism, a field that seems to be the functional equivalent of Swedenborg's energy spheres flowing out from each organism.  Sheldrake contends that the form, development, and behavior of living organisms are shaped and maintained by this field together with genetic inheritance.  In a sense, these fields function like a kind of species memory through which the newly acquired characteristics of prior generations can be passed on to future ones.  The key to species evolution is this: the condition of an organism's systems is constantly updated in these fields.

Sheldrake put his theory to the test in an experiment he conducted on live TV.  Millions of BBC viewers were taught to see hidden images in puzzle pictures.  Before the program aired, a base line was established by observing how well people could distinguish the hidden image.  After the program, people from all over the world who could not have seen or heard the program were again asked to find the image.  The results indicated significant improvement in the worldwide ability of non-viewers to distinguish the image.

Sheldrake was building on the findings of animal research.  (1) At Harvard experiments on rats found that children of rats mastered a maze much faster (tenfold) than their parents, even though the offspring were not born at the time their parents were tested.  This result was replicated in both Scotland and Australia and the rats' performance dramatically improved from place to place even though there was no physical contact among the geographically separated rats. 

(2) In pre-WW2 Europe, milk was home-delivered in cartons.  A bird species (bluetits) suddenly began to land on top of the cartons, remove the cover, and drink the cream.  Some of the birds were even found drowned inside the cartions!  Bluetits have a range of 4-5 miles.  Yet this practice spread for a hundred miles within a year.  The same phenomenon occurred in Scandanavia and Holland.  Milk delivery ceased during the German occupation of Europe during WW2.  Bluetits only have a 2-3 year life expectancy; so all the avian cream drinkers died off.  But after the war, bluetits resumed their cream drinking and this habit spread just as before WW2.

(3) Fontana ("Is There an Afterlife?" pp. 22-23) discusses a study in which measurements were taken of electrodermal reactions on the skin of receivers while they were subjected to a series of both arousing and calming thoughts from a sender in another room.  The sender would visualize the receivers in a very fearful situation or as relaxing on a sunlit beach.  The receivers had no idea which type of thoughts were being sent.  Thus the experiments show that even when receivers have no conscious awareness of whether they are receiving arousing or calming thoughts, the unconscious or morphogenetic field seems to be receiving the information and registering it in physiological reactions.

Don

"My point is, wouldn't we have to come up with some explanation as to why only some of my father's children "inherited" his traumatic memory? "

I don't see why...if memory is related to heredity, there's no necessary reason it should be different from every other hereditary trait, and have dominant and recessive types.