[QUOTE=lieu]
Okay, thanks, Mississippienne. I really was curious what the driving force(s) was behind classical lineal research; if it was more to satisfy a claim that can’t be legally disputed (or any multitude of other possibly biased impetuses) or it it truly was a genetic trace, damn the inconvenience of awkward, extracurricular minglings.
[/QUOTE]
For me it’s less interest in genetics than the family’s meanderings and origins and, as an American history buff, a case study in immigration patterns. It’s a great way to learn regional history or the history of why America itself was settled and why it was such a freaking awesome concept long before the Revolution.
For example, all of my ancestors who were alive in 1860 were in central Alabama and within 40 miles or so of each other, but how they got there is interesting. In researching that I’ve learned a lot about the Georgia Land lotteries, the Creek Indian cessions, the Swiss Huguenot colonies in the Carolinas, reasons people chose Virginia rather than Massachusetts as a place to settle, etc.. Sometimes events 200 years ago can even explain current oddities in your own family- where the cheekbones come from, or a possible theory as to why we all have passionate dislike for pretentious people, or why we’re so clannish (more than most families), etc..
There’s also what I call the Sudoku aspect. It sharpens some critical thinking and research skills and it can be a fun exercise connecting Deadend Grandpa X to his ancestors through detective work (let’s see… the surname would indicate he’s Irish or Welsh, the family was definitely here in 1785, let’s check the emigration records over here… where does anybody of that surname first show up… what other spellings could there be?) and logic (okay, this one had sons named Peter, Lawrence and Jameson, and up here is a woman named Jameson who married a person with that surname, and her brother’s name is Lawrence… hmmm… let’s look at some land records).
Then there are the mysteries that will never be resolved. Sometimes these stark old records tell stories you’d love to know even if you never will. (Why did she marry her first husband’s brother so soon after his death? Why did he suddenly marry after being a widower for 24 years and why of all people his first wife’s grandniece and why on earth did they name a child Adulation? etc.) which can be fun to speculate upon.
I don’t pretend it’s going to lead to a cure for AIDS or make computers cost $3 and operate on oxygen, but it’s a fun and diverting pasttime that helps you understand much more about how people once lived and how we got to where we are.
My biggest surprises, incidentally:
I assumed my family was English/Irish with other stuff thrown in. We’re far more German.
I probably have an African ancestor within the last 250 years.
My mother’s family, which is for the most part religiously indifferent (Christian leaning all around and with some fiery exceptions on the individual level, but as a rule we’re not that religious) stems in the recent past from people heavily persecuted for their religion and who were then intolerant when they came to South Carolina. Odd.
How many slaveowners were in the family and which lines used to be really rich but are far from now and vice versa.
Just how often people once moved around. People 200 years ago when travel was a major burden and risk were far far more likely to die very significant distances from their birthplace than they are today, and it’s also not at all uncommon to find 40 years worth of censuses in which the same person is in a different place many miles from their last location in every census, yet then they settle down and their family remains stationary for more than a century. Trace it back further and you’ll find a similar wandering- they settled in Virginia for a century then wandered for “forty years” before settling in South Carolina and then wandering and finally…
Anyway I digress. But the point is I like it better than sudoiku and you can learn from it.