Family Matters

A reasonable answer to the "why is genealogy so popular" question, though several others remain.

I don't know the demography of those searching family history, but it does seem to be disproportionately elderly. Why is this so? Is it a matter of people facing their own mortality and attempting to find meaning in their lives -- by placing themselves into a vast pedigree web stretching back centuries and across borders? Is it the fear of meaninglessness, the answer (or solution) to which can be found in a family tree that reveals you are related to William the Conquerer twenty times removed through marriage? Why else are family researchers overheard saying things like, "I found out I'm related to Abe Lincoln though my mother's uncle's wife," unless it is a matter of self-esteem, of meaning, of making one a bigger person. Genealogy transforms Joe the Plumber into Joe the descendent of Charlemagne.

In addition, isn't genealogy evidence that Americans don't quite buy Lockean individualism (ok, I'm getting heavy here). Isn't genealogy evidence that Americans believe in "blood" rather than individual achievement? The genealogy of the word genealogy is revealing; it comes from the Greek word genos, meaning "race." Why do people think and act the way they do? Do they make themselves or are there other forces at work, deep beneath the foilage of the family tree, shaping decisions? If genealogy means anything other than curiousity and the search for meaning, it must mean these searchers believe there is a bloody invisible hand shaping their destinies; that they are not quite in control of themselves, that ancestral blood giving people tendencies and proclivities is at work. Again, why else do you hear family researchers say things like "isn't it interesting my great-great-great-great grandfather was a sailor, because I was in the Navy. I guess love of the sea is in our family"? This is almost a syllogism with blood. Smiths were sailors in the past. I am a Smith and in the Navy today. Therefore there must be something in the Smith blood that loves the sea. I didn't choose the sealife; my Smith blood drove me to it.

Now all this makes me the crabby, curmudgeonly deflator of genealogy, but not quite. As has been pointed out, I too have made the treck eastward to Ireland, seen the abandoned family hovel amidst the bleak Irish countryside. I too have the family photographs stretching back into the nineteenth century. I too have notes taken down from my grandmother's recollections about the family, and family notebooks about birthdays, weddings, and deaths going back a hundred years. Why? To be frank, I myself am not sure. There is curiosity, yes -- as a historian, these things give me a more intimate connection to the past that I otherwise miss. I do think there is more to "blood" then many would admit (if hair color and eye color can be passed down, why not social tendencies as well?). The "genealogy as self-esteem" bit doesn't fly with me, as I am pretty smug and self-satisfied. So why? I await other answers.