Why do I care about "where I came from"? and does it matter?

It matters so the power brokers in society can know what brand of privilege to assign to you.

Yeah, it does, and if you already know as much as you've written here, it obviously matters to you.

Genealogy is fun, it brings out the private investigator in you. Too many people take it too serious in hopes that they will find out they're related to the king of England or something. In fact I proved we were not related to someone rather famous in my research. It's just kind of cool knowing where your ancestors were when history took place.

My last name was very common in Virginia and I've only gone back to my three grades grandfather and that is my brick wall. It is frustrating. The month I was getting married I was asked to take a DNA test. That Rose some eyebrows but this researcher wanted to see if my line fell in line with other stuff that were established. It didn't.

I say enjoy.

Oh Please wrote:

I've been doing Ancestry research for 5 years now. I care about where I "came from", however I can't figure out why I care. I feel affinity ever since I was a little kid for the Norse, but what I've found thus far is that I'm 100% British. As far back as I can go, any familial line, I have ties to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Maybe my ancestors stomped Lindisfarne. Maybe not.

I can track my last name back to exactly 1700, and the furthest I can get any direct ancestor is about 1550.

Does it even matter?

I mean, I'm a geneticist, and I can tell you that there are several health indicators that correlate with ancestry. Lung function and response to asthma drugs are very high up there. The whole concept of precision medicine can be related to genetic ancestry.

Also, it's kind of cool and kind of fun. After all, why do we run? Does running even matter? :)

asdfasfds wrote:

After all, why do we run? Does running even matter? :)

Scholarships, prize money, health.

1. Only tracing your surname back to 1700 is weak. Mine goes back to 1500. 1700 was only like 10 generations ago.

2. Get on familysearch.org. It’s free, but they have a public tree so you can look up whatever people you’ve dug up already and see if it matches some of the records they have.

3. Go to relativefinder.org and log in with your family search account and it will show you all the famous people you’re related to. Most will be unverified and distant connections, but I bet you’ll find something.

4. Pretty much every white Anglo Saxon alive today can trace their genealogy back to Edward III and Charlemagne eventually. Set that as a goal and keep working towards it.

5. Another interesting thing to research is your immigrant ancestors who crossed the ocean. Try to find out how many generations ago, why they came across, etc. I was shocked to find out that all of my British and Scots Irish ancestors (about half of my genealogy) came before the Revolutionary War. The earliest one I can find came to Jamestown in about 1610. Pretty amazing stuff.

Overall, genealogy doesn’t determine your worth or your destiny. But it’s pretty motivating to find out that your ancestors helped forge the foundations of Western civilization. Whether you want it or not, there’s a big legacy for you to live up to. You’re standing on the shoulders of giants.

We tend to celebrate recent immigrants so often today in America that those of us who have deep roots here might feel emasculated of our cultural heritage. But it’s still there if you go back far enough, and it’s pretty cool to know that your ancestors have been influencing what it means to be American for hundreds of years.

Oh Please wrote:

I've been doing Ancestry research for 5 years now. I care about where I "came from", however I can't figure out why I care. I feel affinity ever since I was a little kid for the Norse, but what I've found thus far is that I'm 100% British. As far back as I can go, any familial line, I have ties to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Maybe my ancestors stomped Lindisfarne. Maybe not.

I can track my last name back to exactly 1700, and the furthest I can get any direct ancestor is about 1550.

Does it even matter?

Do a DNA test. In some cases, it can really blow people away. A lot of family myths & lies are exposed. Fasten your seatbelt - DNA testing can be a wild ride!

A genealogy Runner Dude wrote:

1. Only tracing your surname back to 1700 is weak. Mine goes back to 1500. 1700 was only like 10 generations ago.

2. Get on familysearch.org. It’s free .....

3. Go to relativefinder.org .....

4. Pretty much every white Anglo Saxon alive today can trace their genealogy back to Edward III and Charlemagne eventually.

.

1. That's more a function of luck. If your ancestors were relatively prosperous, i.e. they had a trade such as a blacksmith, and tended to stay in one place then getting back to the 16th century is possible. If they were transient agricultural labourers, as mine were, and had a relatively common name, then getting back much before 1800 is difficult.

2. & 3. There is a lot of good information on these sites and a lot of garbage. Much like the Lets Run message boards. Anything found there needs to be double checked against the original records. Some of the RootsWeb discussion boards can be very informative.

4. Not so sure about Edward III, the number of his descendants is several million. But when you consider the Anglo Saxon populations of the UK, North America and Australasia you are into the 10's of millions. I would guess it's about a 20% chance of being a descendant. I would agree that for Charlemagne it is pretty close to 100%.

It matters.

Maybe you can find you have the right ancestry and gain the "right of return" to Palestine where you can kick some folks out of their homes and off their land.

The Real Deal wrote:

Oh Please wrote:

I've been doing Ancestry research for 5 years now. I care about where I "came from", however I can't figure out why I care. I feel affinity ever since I was a little kid for the Norse, but what I've found thus far is that I'm 100% British. As far back as I can go, any familial line, I have ties to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Maybe my ancestors stomped Lindisfarne. Maybe not.

I can track my last name back to exactly 1700, and the furthest I can get any direct ancestor is about 1550.

Does it even matter?

Do a DNA test. In some cases, it can really blow people away. A lot of family myths & lies are exposed. Fasten your seatbelt - DNA testing can be a wild ride!

Good advice for Liz Warren.

I have a relative on my mother's side who has spent his life researching the family lineage with other genealogists, and they've established a credible line all the way back to the Vikings of the late 900s. Much like with descendants of Edward III and Charlemagne, all of us Norskis are somehow related to the great Viking leaders. It's interesting to see the lineage that far back in time, but I honestly don't think the amount of time spent by my relative and others has really produced anything useful.

On my father's side, it's been much more interesting because we know almost nothing about our ancestors, and finding information has been near impossible for the reasons you state in #1-3 above. It took years just to get a verified line back to the mid-1800s, and that's where it ends. My great-great grandfather came from Genoa, Italy with a fake (French) name. That's our best guess. At least we now know why some of us aren't fair-skinned and don't burn after five minutes in the sun. LOL.

#1: Not sure what to tell you , but virtually 100% of male ancestors I've found were simple farmers. Getting credible documentation gets difficult before 1860 and really difficult before 1790 (in the US) unless your ancestors were otherwise notable.

#2: I've been doing pretty serious research for 5 years, of course I know about familysearch.org. I've found some good things there, but the proving what is in the tree is very difficult.

#3 & #4: I don't care about relatives, only direct ancestors. I do not believe I am directly descended from any sort of British king else a connection would have been made already.

#5: My father's line traces it's roots entirely before the Revolutionary War, and so it gets far enough back that you can't really prove that some name on a ship manifest is the actual ancestor in my line. I consider them tentative links. The surnames involved are too common in my case (Go ahead, prove one Thomas James from 1700 is the same Thomas James mentioned on some document in 1670 :D)

I was under the influence of a couple drinks last night, so allow me to further explain the question.

In my case, I can reliably get back to ~1700 with my surname. Am I "American" (yea anachronistic ). If I go just a bit further it is believed that they came from Wales. So am I welsh? My paternal grandmother's line is Scottish as far as I can trace it, which is late 18th century. My mother is from England, born of an Irish father and English mother. So I guess I'm either all British or Colonial American.

But of course that's arbitrary. All those people came from some where. Where were they in 1066? Norman? Saxon? Brits? And how about 410 when the Roman Empire left Britannia?

So it is this line of thinking that bothers me. Where you come from and who you "are" is arbitrary based on how far you want or can look back.

does anything matter?

Does anyone really believe that those DNA ancestry databases aren't going to eventually be shared with the government? Think about it. You're a perfect angel but one of your distant relatives DNA is left at a crime scene, innocent or not. LEA can't match your relative, but can trace a handful of close matches and you're one of them. The police, wanting to close this case start harassing you, but you don't know nothing. Like Mueller, they start digging into everything about you and come up with an unrelated "offense" that you may or may not have done. The legal fees will ruin your life because of it.

All because you sent in DNA to one of those annoying ancestry companies.

John Utah wrote:

does anything matter?

I don't have an opinion on this discussion, but I usually agree with John Utah, so I agree with his statement.

IMO, yes. Happier, longer-lived people are those who have connections and traditions. In an ever-more fragmented real-world existence, learning and growing your connection to your ancestors and homeland(s) only helps in most instances. (Unless you're among a line of criminals, small-minded social-fabric disruptors, warped nationalist, etc.).

Oh Please wrote:

I've been doing Ancestry research for 5 years now. I care about where I "came from", however I can't figure out why I care. I feel affinity ever since I was a little kid for the Norse, but what I've found thus far is that I'm 100% British. As far back as I can go, any familial line, I have ties to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Maybe my ancestors stomped Lindisfarne. Maybe not.

I can track my last name back to exactly 1700, and the furthest I can get any direct ancestor is about 1550.

Does it even matter?

Depends. is your name Elizabeth Warren? If so, yes it does. And you'll do anything to ensure no ones knows.

If those commercial DNA services are accurate, their results are significantly different form narrative parents, grand parents and great grand parents. told me. I know my parents believed they were telling me the truth about ancestor roots. I wonder if my grand parents and great grand parents who are all gone, if they knew they were passing along a false narrative.

IF those commercial DNA .... wrote:

If those commercial DNA services are accurate, their results are significantly different form narrative parents, grand parents and great grand parents. told me. I know my parents believed they were telling me the truth about ancestor roots. I wonder if my grand parents and great grand parents who are all gone, if they knew they were passing along a false narrative.

I have a false narrative in my family tree. An ancestor was born in 1842 and her birth certificate dutifully lists her father and mother who had married some 10 years earlier and already had five other children. The only problem is her father was in prison at the time and subsequently deported to Australia. I am sure they didn't allow conjugal visits in the 1840's.