Hey man, this is an exciting undertaking! And a really big one too. I really like the premise of your work so far and if you're looking for feedback or to get a sense of how others are interacting with the work, would you mind giving us a look at the underpinnings of it? To put it another way, where are you coming from and why are you doing it?

For example:

Who is your target audience? I ask, because the tone, the language and the way that people connect to those things are a powerful influence on maintaining reader interest, building anticipation and of course the degree to which people may find the work to be a page turner.

You've talked about what you see as the premise for the work, but I wonder what you see as the driving force, the question that needs to be answered for the reader in reading this book or collection or whatever this ultimately develops into. If the goal is to stoke the fires of curiosity into excitement and a love of exploring the kinds of questions you plan to present, is the work as-is accomplishing that in a way that you are satisfied with?

At the moment, this piece of writing is well-crafted, thoughtful and penetrating, but to me as someone with only a cursory background in the hard sciences it strikes me as a bit technical. It feels like there needs to be some more of you in there, relating to these things as a human being.

For example:

Like most people I found that with each successive generation it became exponentially more difficult to find reliable data of my ancestors.

Uh-huh. With you so far, I remember those kinds of projects too (connection!)

However, I was lucky that my maternal granddad had retained a lot of letters, images, and documents from his history, which made it easier for me to extend my family tree.

Here, you begin to get into a lot of very human stuff, stuff that people can connect with, but that anecdotal stuff is sadly missing! Families are messy things. There are secrets and things forgotten, cherished memories and unforgettable bad days, there are all those tangled webs of attachments that will allow the readers to put their arm in the author's and oblige the author with a walk through wherever the author's mind will lead them. This is pretty crucial, especially if the author is setting up a section where people will need to stop and think about things.

It helps the readers to stop and think about things if the author directs the reader's gaze and helps to open up the wonder of whatever it is they're exposing their readers to. It's also good for the author to show the reader why this is important, not just from the factual, but from the emotional perspective as well.

“When I look up in the universe. I know I’m small. But I’m also big. I’m big because I’m connected to the universe, and the universe is connected to me.”

Boom. This is exactly what the reader needs. This, to me, is a stronger opening quote, because it prepares me led over the horizon.

As interesting as this perspective on our origins is, it also leaves mystery, and an inescapable question: If the Big Bang was the start of our universe, setting off a chain of events that eventually produced our species, what caused it?

Ah, mystery. Mystery is key to excitement and excitement is the key to exploration. Prime your readers for that; show them why it makes you excited, get them on board. There are lots of interesting questions here, but as a reader I feel like I want to meander through those questions a bit more from your perspective.