How much do you care who your ancestors were, and why?

In My Humble Opinion
21

One statistic that I heard on one of those genealogy TV shows, I think it was the British “Who Do You Think You Are?” is that if you go back around 1000 years, you are almost certainly related to everyone at that time in the areas your ancestors came from who had children. That means effectively being descended from 80% of the people alive in the area at the time. So if you’re British, for example, you’re probably descended from William the Conqueror and King Harold both, along with a lot of other ordinary people. Some people can document that stuff, most can’t. Some of my ancestors were British, so I suppose that includes me.

I suspect that my thinking about this stuff is a symptom of too much time on my hands.

22

It would be kind of neat, but I just haven’t scraped up the effort to pursue it. So, I guess my answer is, “Not that much.”

23

Not really. I got a DNA kit because I was mildly interested in my ethnicity, but I didn’t find anything there I couldn’t deduce by looking in a mirror.

I’m really only interested in relatives from living memory. People that had a direct effect on my life and my loved ones. I found out I’m a distant relative of Jesse James. Big deal, so are a lot of people. I’d be equally uninterested to know if (for example) I had a penniless nobody shoe cobbler great great great grandfather. He’s dead and he doesn’t care if I care anyway.

24

I’m fascinated by it in broad strokes, although past a certain point, there’s not much familial pride, because you’re just one of several thousand fifteenth-cousins descended from the same person in 1400. I do like the idea of knowing that my family’s from say… northern Germany or western England, or Bohemia, or wherever, mostly as potential connections to historical events than anything else.

25

I don’t know why I care but I do. My ancestors were pretty much General Issue and nothing special although we did have a habit of popping up in official documents for ----- pretty much just being ourselves. A little nomadic, not really afraid of that much, and generally following the motto of “it sounded like a good idea”. Seeing that go back 300+ years just gives me a warm feeling.

Although I do admit the hope of a horse-thief or ax murderer popping up some day. :wink:

26

Hanged. I mean, unless she was one of the rare protogynous hermaphrodite witches. They were frequently hung.

27

My experience is just the opposite: learning about local and larger historical events has left me more or less indifferent to my family tree. Which is probably a good idea, since I suspect I’m the sap…

28

I think it’s fun to see some of my ancestors and their relatives. One relative of mine was a notorious gangster (they even made a movie about him). Another was a world-famous gynecologist. He was indirectly responsible for my grandfather moving to start out family business: he had divorced my great aunt and she made enough in alimony to support them when they moved.

I’ve also discovered other things I never know: an uncle who had died at three weeks. My mother knew of him, but I discovered his name. Also my grandmother’s real name. And hints that my name may have been changed over time.

29

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.

30

I find the historical connection to things that are quite distant personally to be fascinating. I discovered that fairly recently ancestors were from an ethnic group I had never heard of: Griko. My own name comes from an ancestor there.

Edit: and since I now see the prior post, the DNA results track the history perfectly and make it quite clear that today’s “Southern Italian” was yesterday’s “Byzantine Empire.”

I find it fascinating what history got remembered (very, very little), what got misremembered (some), and what was forgotten (almost everything).

31

Growing up, both sides of my family had a very robust documented genealogical history. Add to that the fact that my people are long-lived, so there were lots of living ancestors around me. So, it was just part of my upbringing to be aware of the detailed history, who was who, and some of their funny names in the past (Wrestling as a first name?).

As I got older I became aware of the inherited qualities being passed on - seeing grandparents, aunts and uncles, and then young children with similar appearences or behaviors. So, I find caring about my ancestors to be a worthwhile use of my brain space.

Other considerations - I find that I am not able to create children. In a sense, I am the last of a line that stretches all the way back to the first primordial cells dividing in the ooze. Consequently, I only have the past, I don’t really have the future.

32

I’d be interested in knowing my heritage if someone could just tell me. Other than that, I don’t really care. Mostly Irish, according to what I’ve been told. Some English, some Swedish as my last name attests. I think my maternal grandmother was born in Ireland, but even if that’s true, I couldn’t tell you which county.
So if someone were to just spell it out for me, I’d listen; but I’m not gonna go digging on my own.

33

There’s a persistent family rumor that my father’s youngest brother was the product of an affair my grandmother had. This is a scab that no one in the family wants to pick at.

34

I care not at all.

One side of my family is LDS, so they were into genealogy before it was cool. I’ve never looked at any of the accumulated data. I don’t care about dead strangers I’ve never met. I don’t even care all that much about the ones that are still alive.

35

I’m interested, but not enough to do any deep research. A couple of my cousins - one on each side - did some digging, and one cousin even went back to the town that our paternal grandparents came from in Poland and met some shirttail relatives. I think that’s kinda neat.

On the maternal side, my mom’s cousin discovered that their grandfather, who we knew died young, was actually killed in prison where he was serving a term for murder. That little story didn’t make it into family lore, but Carolyn dug it up.

The main problem is my family tree roots are in Poland - everyone migrated here in the early 1900s, and records over there are sparse, if they exist at all. From what I understand, most records were kept by the local churches, and many of those records have deteriorated over the years. Mostly what I know is I come from peasant stock - no famous anybodies as far as any of us know.

36

I like the idea that I’m writing a story of my family. I want to know what compelled them to come all the way to the US. The people who can tell the stories that make it a rich experience are getting old, so I feel a responsibility to document it in case any future generations care. But most of all, it’s a bigass puzzle with little mysteries here and there, so I find it interesting.

Besides, how else would we find out that Uncle so and so was in the Purple Gang in the a Prohibition era and that behind my sweet great grandmother’s smile, was a lady who was a bootlegger? Somehow, we aren’t all alcoholics.

37

Pretty much this. I’ve been doing research since 1998, though I’ve really tapered off of it in the past couple of years. In the process, I found Mayflower passengers, and Revolutionary War and Civil war veterans, but the more interesting thing was seeing where they lived and the steady progress across the country as territory opened up. My grandkids have used the research for class projects, and I helped one grandson make a six generation fan chart. I doubt that anyone really cares about any of it other than perhaps a passing interest, and I suspect that my file cabinet drawer stuffed full of paper that supports the research will end up in the trash when I’m gone. But it was a fun, interesting and sometimes frustrating hobby.

38

Let me guess…That wouldn’t be Rebecca Nurse by any chance, would it Doctor?

39

I’m interested for the history of it. I can trace my father’s side to the late eighteenth century, and my mother’s side to around 1640. All I have are names and occupations though.

There’s a family rumor about a Roman soldier on my mother’s side. Cool if true.

40

I’ve also been able to help people search for their own ancestors, and in fact offered to help folks on this message board at one time, since I have an Ancestry membership. I think I was able to find info for some of them, or at least point them in a direction to take.