# How much do you care who your ancestors were, and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 16, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515 "2020-01-16T17:54:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2020, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/81 "2020-01-20T21:52:21Z")
I don’t care much at all. What I’d really like to know is why my mom and dad never talked about their cousins, aunts, or uncles. Doing a family tree or delving into genealogy won’t give me that answer. A few years ago I got a FB message from someone in Sweden (my paternal grandparents and maternal grandfather were from Sweden) saying if I am indeed \ relative of \ then it 96% certain I am related to the King and/or Queen of Sweden. I’m surprised he didn’t ask for money to be sent in the form of a gift card… ---
**Author:** ![Kovitlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kovitlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kovitlac)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2020, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/82 "2020-01-20T22:28:38Z")
I care less about things like my likelihood to enjoy cilantro and whether I prefer to sleep on the cool side of the pillow, and more about where my ancestors came from, and what they did with their lives. I plan on doing either Ancestry or 23 and Me sometime when it’s more convenient for me. See what I find 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/83 "2020-01-20T22:36:58Z")
> [@RingsOfPylon](#): > > The genealogy part is more curiosity than anything else. Who were those people, where did they live, where did they come from, what was going on in their lives? Then there was the self-challenge - can I find them and how much can be found? > > You find some and then you just keep going, but it’s amazing how much you learn in the process. Mostly history and local histories and what went on in most people’s lives. > > DNA leads you to other family members who may have more info, or it leads you to other relatives that you didn’t find in your research. It takes you to all sorts of interesting places, which are places you wouldn’t have thought interesting in the past. As a plus, I’ve met some very nice 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cousins along the way. > > As to the ethnic breakdown that has everyone so excited, you have to take it with a grain of salt. This area is in its infancy, it gets changed as new info comes in, and it’s only accurate on a broad level. Plus, people have no concept of time and movement. Yes, you may have had 3 generations of ancestors who lived in the UK, but did they come from elsewhere before that? > > The broad categories such as “Northwestern European”, “Eastern European”, “Western Asia”, “Eastern Africa” are pretty reliable. But drilling down to, say, Denmark or Thailand, less so. > > There is a dearth of Native American reference panels, particularly from the US and Canada. Native Americans simply do not like DNA tests as a group and they don’t participate in helping to create reference panels. There is still a lot to be done in Asia with different groups. Right now, there’s a lot of lumping in that goes on with Asian DNA. > > I worked with a woman of assumed Italian descent who was outraged because her results showed only a small percentage of Italian heritage, but a large percentage of Greek heritage. “We were always told we are Italian!” > > Do you think there was a lot of exchange between Mediterranean groups? Do you think they moved around and traveled back and forth? Did your ancestors just spring up in what is now Italy, or could they have come mostly from a neighboring population? How long were they in Italy? Three or four generations? More? What about their spouses? > > People moved around, borders changed, plagues and wars displaced people, new people moved into previously-ravaged areas. Ethnicity is a moving target in that regard, so don’t get too hung up on it. It will probably point you in the right direction unless you are Native American or Asian, but specificity may not be accurate or may be only partially accurate. Large parts of what’s now Italy were colonized by Greeks in ancient times. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/84 "2020-01-20T23:46:09Z")
Generations past can have a definite effect on the current generation. Here’s one example from my own life: one of my great-grandfathers was French-Canadian. He came to the Pacific NW of the US, possibly illegally, and changed his name rather transparently to its English equivalent. He spent most of his career as an itinerant cook at lumber camps in Washington State. His wife had an Irish-sounding name; possibly they were Catholic but I don’t know. They had a fairly large family, 6 or 7 kids that I know about. They were poor and uneducated, and their kids came out the same, including my grandmother, one of their daughters. This grandmother, still uneducated, was widowed at a fairly young age, when my father was 6. She knew nothing about child rearing except shouting and violence, and so that’s what my father learned. To give him credit, my father did not give in entirely to his background and upbringing, but the influence was definitely there. This, in turn, had its effect on me, and if I hadn’t been gay I still would have been reluctant to have children because I was afraid of being a bad parent. I know nothing more about the background of these two great-grandparents. Sometimes I think it would give me a little more closure about my past to know what they came from and how they ended up the way they did. Or maybe not, it’s hard to say. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/85 "2020-01-21T00:42:01Z")
I find family history interesting because I learn history that way. Like how a several greats grandfather was court-martialed during the American Revolution, and got his sentence commuted because they were short on able bodied fighters. Or how his great grandparents fled from France because of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. My own great-great grandfather was incarcerated in the notorious Andersonville prison during the American Civil War. Knowing these things helps the history stick in my head. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/86 "2020-01-21T07:44:14Z")
My brother died recently, and at his rather elaborate funeral they called out a list of his (and therefore my) ancestors\*. The thing about Maori ancestors (tipuna) is that after a few generations you move from actual people to what may not have been real people to actual Gods. It’s quite a trip, and I’m not entirely sure how to reconcile it in my own head sometimes. On my Mother’s side, all white European, there’s nothing of note. It’s fairly boring English nobodies forever and then we lose track pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/87 "2020-01-21T08:20:48Z")
All I care about is that my ancestors managed to survive and procreate. So they beat a gazillion others in the Darwinian lottery…my self is happy about that because I happen to be here to be happy about it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/88 "2020-01-21T13:35:56Z")
> [@Dandan](#): > > Not interested in my own family, but a couple of years ago I came across a very unusual, perhaps unique, name on a gravestone. I should mention that I’m an avid amateur photographer, and old cemeteries are a favorite subject. > > The lady in question died in 1921, and I was so taken with her name that I went to a website and traced her family forward a couple of generations. > > This only got me to the 1950’s, and there were a LOT of progeny, plus there are a flock of same-last-name but probably not-related folk in W Maryland, neighboring WV, and Og help me probably also in nearby PA. I got bored, despite enjoying history, and visiting and photographing local historical sites. The price of having too many interests. > > Her name? Narozzo Wagoner. > > Dan That’s really cool. And now here we are talking about her on the internet almost a hundred years later. I wonder how her parents came up with that name. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515/89 "2020-01-21T16:01:48Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > The gossip about my family entertains me as much as the gossip about the Kardashians. Seconded! 🙂 ie, not at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-you-care-who-your-ancestors-were-and-why/846515.md?page=4)