Geneaology: What's Not to Understand?

A while ago the Doc mused in this space on the subject of geneaology, viz., why the heck are so many people crazy for it? It is time to take up the gauntlet.

Simply enough, Doc, because Americans don't know where they come from...oh, heck, you do, of course. You have, if I recall correctly, visited the old family house outside Cork, on t' ol ancestral sod, begorra. But most Americans cannot do that. And they want to know where they are from. Simple as that.

This is a trend accelerated by events of fifty years ago, when people started to travel hither and yon in search of a job, or going where their company told them to go. So they ended up in Oregon when they had started out in South Philly, and the South Philly gig had been as a result of someone moving down from the Appalachians looking for work when the mine closed. A whole lot of moving has been going on, and this leads to a whole lot of people wondering where they come from, you see? It is not a historical question so much as a philosophical or even theological one. But it is a genuine historical emotion, a sense awakened when contemplating the past. And therefore, for the historian, it should be an important emotion, one to be dealt with respectfully.

Even if those genealogical types do get in our way when we're in the archive, ours is not the only way of approaching the past. Too broad-minded for you? Well, I plead guilty. And just wait until I get on the subject of military reenactors!