Michael Oakeshott (in Present, Future and Past) on an "encapsulated" past:

“...since we are concerned with what happened in respect of its reflection in what we are, we should perhaps include our genetic past: the organization of genes which distinguished that unknown great-grandfather which now appears in the colour of my eyes and the shape (and, in part, the skill) of my hands. What comes after may modify what went before, but it cannot expunge it. Layer upon layer; all a great and contingent mixture from which we cannot escape but to which what we are and what we do now is somehow a response.”