People who claim to be descendants of Rashi are a regular, and delicate, matter for me - especially if they announce themselves when I'm lecturing about my books.
First of all, speaking as someone who did serious genealogy for several years in the 1980's (which is how I honed the research skills I'd need later), there is no hard evidence for anyone's descent from Rashi. Several authorities have written articles on the subject in Avotanu, the Jewish genealogy journal and the difficulty is that everyone who claims Rashi as an ancestor relies on legends, because unfortunately, there is no historical evidence of what happened to Rashi's descendants in the 13th-14th century (Jews were expelled from France in 1306 and 1394). In short, those who claim to be descended from Rashi have no real proof of this.
However, if you do the math (2 parents, 4 grandparents, etc. giving every generation 25 years going back 900 years), you'll find that you have over 3 million ancestors at Rashi's time, far more than the number of Jews estimated to live in Europe then (approx 50,000). Thus you must have many of the same ancestors in multiple lines, and since Rashi had at least 12 grandchildren, all of whom had progeny, the odds are great that you, and nearly every Jew with European ancestors today, is descended from Rashi (we just don't know how exactly).
After finally returning from a grueling book tour for Jewish Book Month (see the schedule on my website), I have received quite a lot of feedback on Book II, and I was delighted to hear that for the most part, my readers were just as enthusiastic about MIRIAM as JOHEVED. I'd expected a great deal of flack for making Judah attracted to other men, but to my surprise, more people were concerned about Miriam becoming a mohelet (both scenarios were complete fiction on my part). But for the few people bothered by the homosexuality issue (nearly all of whom were men, interestingly) and for the others who were merely curious why I choice this issue, here's a summary of what I was speaking about in my recent lectures.
In my women's Talmud class back in 1992, Rachel Adler explained how you couldn't invent a more homosocial milieu than the yeshiva, what with adolescents and their raging hormones, separated from women, studying these exciting texts in intimate hevruta relationships. If ever a man was going to be carnally attracted to another, this was it. She pointed out several pairs of Talmudic sages who were passionately involved with each other, including Yohanan and Lakish. So when I outlined all three books in 1997, I decided to write about that world and its temptations in Book II. I had no idea that gay clergy would be on the front page of newspapers this year and that ordaining gay rabbis would be the source of much controversy in the Conservative movement.
As I did my research, I learned (to my surprise) that just as 11th-12th society was tolerant of Jews, of heterodox Christianity, and of educated and powerful women, it was also accepting of same-gender love. While sexual relations between men were a sin (as was all non-procreative sex for the Church), love and sexual attraction were considered normal, with a handsome youth seen as equally attractive as a beautiful maiden. The king of France at this time had a male lover and it didn't seem to be a big deal, and we have many examples of passionate love letters and poetry written by men about men, some by Jews.
I wanted to teach my readers about this aspect of medieval life, to create a character who would struggle with his yetzer hara and control it only at great personal cost. I wanted them to find him sympathetic and share his angst (and Miriam's). And from the outpouring of praise I've gotten from most of them, I've succeeded.