Sorry, but family history really is bunk

The Spectator ^ | 30th April 2008 | Leo McKinstry

[forkinsocket]

Leo McKinstry says the current craze for genealogy reflects an unhealthy combination of snobbery and inverse snobbery, and is a poor replacement for national history

When I visited the National Archives at Kew last week the place was full of them, scurrying about with their plastic wallets in hand, a look of eager concentration on their faces. It was impossible to escape their busy presence as they whispered noisily to relatives or whooped over the discovery of some new piece of information.

These were the followers of one of Britain’s fastest-growing craze, the mania for researching family history. Studying bloodlines and tracing ancestral roots was once the preserve of the aristocracy. Today, as I saw at the National Archives, it has become a favourite activity of the British public. We are becoming a nation of obsessive genealogists. According to a recent study by the polling organisation YouGov, 28 per cent of British people have tried at some stage to trace their family tree, and 10 per cent of the population are currently doing so. It is said that genealogy websites are the most commonly visited on the internet after pornography. The website Genes Reunited, which claims to be ‘the UK’s number one family tree and genealogy site’, boasts that it has no fewer than eight million members. Another major web company, Find My Past, says that it has a registered usership of 1.32 million people and a mailing list of almost 600,000.

Ten years ago, there was just one mainstream genealogy magazine. Now there are seven. Another indicator of this fixation with family history is the phenomenal success of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, whose weekly episodes feature different celebrities tracing their roots.

[count-your-change]

Prole, proletarian=the lower classes, commoners

[DManA]

If it was good enough for Adam it's good enough for me.
< g > we’ll all be speaking English.

[Gondring]

My greatest frustration in doing genealogy was the discovery that many (most?) people doing it have very low standards of evidence. Much of what's been done is useless, as it's based on wishful thinking, guesswork, etc., seemingly fueled by things mentioned in the article. A friend who was into genealogy way back when called them "royalty hounds" ...I bet there's a common term for them--people who care more about making interesting or more numerous connections than doing quality research to discover the truth.

[DManA]

I consider that a separate subject and yes that research is fascinating.

[Gondring]

Eventually we will have a national DNA registry. That can be combined with genetic information to assist doctors in diagnosing and treating serious diseases.

Wait til you see the number of children who are not fathered by the mother's husband. This is one of the concerns genealogists face with some of the family DNA attempts being made.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

My wife did a geneology search on both mine and her family a couple summers ago. What we discovered only increased our national pride, not diminished it

My experience exactly. When my aunt died, I inherited all her genealogy papers. My mother's side of the family (through my aunt's research) was able to trace their roots back to a Lieutenant under General Washington, who was shot in the leg transmitting dispatches to the General. Because of this revolutionary war wound, his name was recorded for history. Through him, my mother's family was entitled to be considered "DAR"-- Daughters of American Revolution. I was blown away with her research until I discovered that she took it one step further and uncovered proof that had the family be considered as -- "DAC" -- Daughters of American Colonists. Cool!

[Biblebelter]

My great grandfather was born in the 1850’s. As a kid, he shook hands with Abraham Lincoln. This account was retold in a local newspaper clipping that I have from the 1940’s. My family were Republicans on both sides. They were conservatives. My great great grandfather founded a Methodist Church in 1850’s as well. In my father’s last years, he realized the Methodist Church had left him, and I took him to a new church home, and this made him very happy. My father lived along enough to vote for Bush in 2000. I voted for Bush in 2004. But alas, this year I cannot and will not vote for the Republican Presidential candidate nor will I vote for the Democratic candidate. I can say with some degree of certainty, that on my father’s side of the family this is the first time a male has not voted Republican for the Presidency since the Republican Party was founded. We have a choice, we can fashion ourselves to the times or we can stand firm on principle and move on from what was foundational to our family’s forefathers. I am at peace with this decision. And someday, in my eternal peace, I know I will rest with ancestors in a cemetery plot where my stone awaits me, as does my ancestors who date of birth on their stones go back as far as 1815.

[muawiyah]

There are reports of “problems” in that direction.

[nathanbedford]

Forgive me, but there is something so artlessly contrived about this writing. Dare I say it, it is so homosexual in the style and the purview of the piece.

I can just imagine the assignment desk editor at The Spectator saying, "McKinstry ! Write something on this genealogy business. My brother-in-law is obsessed by it and I can't stand the bloody blogger. You know what to do, put genealogy down and make the people look stupid. I don't need it good, I need it Tuesday."

So dutifully McKinstry sets out to write as he is told. It reminds me of Rex Reed some years ago determined to make a name for himself as a movie critic being flamboyantly obnoxious and cutting about the people he was reviewing, much like the English chap on American Idol whose name I am proud to say I do not know.

If you are a young fashion designer determined to make a reputation and set your new career on an upward course, you might contrive a more flamboyant fashion trend. Or, you might try to make a name for yourself by wittily burlesquing the garments of celebrities for television viewers. You might even publish a worst dressed list.

It's cynical and it cheapens us all.

[YCTHouston]

I have no idea how being bored by genealogy makes you a liberal, but if you actually read the article to the end, he is not a liberal. The last 2 or 3 paragraphs are especially worth reading.

[donna]

Prole, proletarian=the lower classes, commoners

industrial wage-earner:
in Marxist theory, a member of the industrial working class whose only asset is labor sold to an employer

Oh! I didn't get it because America has never had that until the illegal aliens arrived.

[muawiyah]

Don't give up so easy. John McCain is an older man. He was a POW for many years in his youth. His ancestors did not live long lives. Even now John's memory is slipping. He's forgotten his promise about getting the border under control FIRST. Many of us think this is a sign of impending cardiovascular failure in major blood vessels in his brain.

There's a doggone good chance that you'll find the Republicans needing to select a candidate at the convention.

See you at the polls!

[School of Rational Thought]

Not to mention that as the UK has become such a hodge podge of multi-cultural stew, it is not such a big leap to imagine that people begin to finally the heritage they have forfeited for politics.

[tiki]

On one side of my husband’s family they don’t want to admit that they have any Mexican blood but they still have the Mexican Land Grant nor will they admit to the Native American which makes him a full quarter Native American considering his paternal and maternal blood lines.

I agree that it is something to be proud of but there really have been times when it was best not known but that has passed. All 4 of my grandchildren have those black Mexican/Indian eyes even though 2 of them are blondes.

[School of Rational Thought]

Not to mention that as the UK has become such a hodge podge of multi-cultural stew, it is not such a big leap to imagine that people begin to finally appreciate the heritage they have forfeited for politics.

[darkangel82]

I’m not reading 2 paragraphs of his drivel.

[x]

My greatest frustration in doing genealogy was the discovery that many (most?) people doing it have very low standards of evidence. Much of what's been done is useless, as it's based on wishful thinking, guesswork, etc., seemingly fueled by things mentioned in the article. A friend who was into genealogy way back when called them "royalty hounds" ...I bet there's a common term for them--people who care more about making interesting or more numerous connections than doing quality research to discover the truth.

In every election year, there's an article about how this or that candidate is descended from a King of England, say Henry II or Edward I.

But that's one of the least interesting things one could find out about one's ancestry.

It would be a little surprising if you didn't find a king when you went far enough back.

It's the stuff that happened closer to our own time -- or at least in our own country -- that's more interesting.

That the Bushes are descended from a medieval English king is less interesting than that their ancestor is the man, Samuel Prescott, who finished Paul Revere's ride when Revere was stopped by the British.

It doesn't make them better people, anymore than John Kerry's descent from Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony makes him a good person or McCain's from a captain on George Washington's staff makes him worth more than other Americans, but it does bring history a little closer to us.

But even if you don't find ancestors like these, the search can still be worthwhile.

[Publius]

Interesting that they were R's on both sides.

My father's side was recruited into the Republicans by way of Marc Hanna's ethnic Republican clubs, which were the tool he and McKinley had used in 1896 to beat the Democratic/Populist merged party. They prospered during the Depression, and as a result they supported Landon, Wilkie and Dewey against the New Dealers.

My mother's side failed to prosper even during the 1920's, and they suffered during the Depression. They viewed FDR as their savior, and even today the descendants are all staunch Democrats.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Was that writer trying to be witty? Edward II was notorious as a homosexual, and might have been murdered for that reason.

[firebrand]

People who consider themselves white have some revelatory moments in the Library of Congress genealogy section, according to this book.