To not understand why some people want to get into contact with long lost distant relatives or research long dead decendants?

[misspontypine]

I am watching some Sunday evening crap tv. The program is about people from the USA coming to Sweden and learning more about their Swedish roots. Most of the people on the show have one Swedish great grandparent or grandparent (a couple only have a Swedish great great grandparent) so they are 1/16 1/8 or 1/4 Swedish.

They research their Swedish decendent and find people who also have the same decendent and meet up with lots of tears and hugs (the Swedish long lost relative often looks pretty shocked and confused about the outpooring of emotions from someone they don't know and only share a great great grandparent with.)

I have an aunt who spends her spare time researching our family tree but ironically I have only ever met this aunt once, I am her living breathing neice and she is more interested in finding out which church her great great grandparents were married in.

I have adopted siblings and my opinion is that labels (grandma, sister, uncle) don't actually mean anything it is the time you spend together and the love you give each other that is important.

AIBU to think it is odd that some people think that a tiny amount of shared DNA with another person (living or dead) means that that person is worth researching and possible traveling far to meet?

[perplexedpirate]

Sorry, just, but I think it's exactly that - 'snooping around'.
I don't like the thought that years from now when I'm long dead, people I'll never meet will be poking in my business, judging my life etc when I'm not there to answer for myself.
I like to afford the same privacy and respect to my own ancestors.

[SatinSandals]

Your descendants may want to 'snoop' around and find out all about you and you won't be around to know!

[perplexedpirate]

I know. I don't like it!
I should leave a note to be unearthed after I'm gone saying 'Piss off, Nosy!'.

[EustonRoad]

OP, personally I am estranged from my family and researching my distant and dead relations gave me a sense of belonging and identity.

I also have the posh ancestors - Charlemagne, Alfred, William I, the "white queen" etc. One thing I say to my girls is that breeding and all that shit are irrelevant and the Royal Family, aristocracy etc are not unique or special.

Two things I have learned: one is that you are dead a long time and life is for the living; second, is that there is one race, the human race and we are all closely related.

[GruffBillyGoat]

YABU some people just find these things interesting. My ancestors were some of the first Europeans in this area, and there are about a dozen surnames that make up a large portion of the population in our small town. It can be quite interesting.

One of my close friends shares the same surname as me, we are only related through the first member of of our family to arrive in this area which was 6 generations ago on my side and 7 on her side. People got very confused by our shared name throughout school and knowing the family history let us explain that we were about as closely related as anyone else in the class, despite knowing each other since birth and sharing a name.

Also by the time my grandmother died she was a great-great-great-grandmother and knew and loved her decendants, the distance between them did not change the fact that they were family.

[cory]

perplexedpirate, do you think all history is wrong then? should there not be any history books? Or why is it ok to snoop in other people's lives as long as they are not related?

[limitedperiodonly]

perplexedpirate my mum feels the same way as you. Her cousin wanted to do some research and asked her questions about her parents and she was furious.

There must be a deep, dark secret there but I'm too scared to ask

[SatinSandals]

I think that it is perhaps something that comes when you are older. Unfortunately I wasn't interested when younger and could have asked questions and now it is too late because people have died.
It is the deep, dark secrets that make it interesting!

[specialsubject]

I have been looking into family history on and off for 20 years. Two years ago I found the last first cousin of my grandmother. She lives half a world away and we probably won't meet, but we have spoken and exchange emails. And Facebook - way to go, she's in her 90s!

it is a little like speaking again to my beloved grandmother, (they look quite alike and have some shared attitudes!) This lady also has some lovely family history to share and she and the family are interesting in their own right.

utterly, totally worthwhile.

[throckenholt]

If you are dead and long gone it makes not a smidgeon of difference to you if someone is interested in your life. And it doesn't matter at all what they think of you - you will never know or care.

[elskovs]

Don't know OP, weird isn't it. I mean, we are all related to each other in some way, so, who cares?

I have a father and some half siblings Ive never met and I have no desire to.

[SatinSandals]

The world is probably split into those who are interested and care and those who are not and don't, there is really no need to understand it or change. Just accept we are all different.

[redexpat]

I started because Mum didn't know much about her wider family. For some reason it was not to be talked about. Her mother was quite weird about stuff like that. I didn't get very far though.

I also wanted just to see how far back I could go - I liked the challenge. I started doing my Dad's side, expecting failure and got back to the 1700s.

I live abroad and realistically am here to stay, so thought that it was now or never in terms of having info to pass on to my children. Yes DS your GGGP was in a huge naval battle just off the coast of where we live.

Also I was quite bored and on maternity leave.

I don't understand why it is interesting or fun to follow a football team. Horses for courses.

[ethelb]

OP I agree. I have quite a large family and have little desire to aquire more relatives.

It is also the case if you go back a certain number of generaitons you were related to everyone then anyway.

I also think there is a certain level of snootiness involved. All of these people on here looking back to find out whether they are related to royalty, really reveals a certain something about them.

[misspontypine]

I wonder in the future if our decendants will be able to go an a daterbase that gives them the ip address of their ancestors and thereby access to their mumsnet username! Just think in 20 years out great great great grandchildren may be reading this hi gggc!

I think that the idea that your ancestors were royal/Irish/Swedish/peasents should in some way influence your identity makes me feel uncomfortable. I have a very different identity to my parents and grandparents, I can't see why my great great great grandparents would have any influence on the way I identify myself.

[harticus]

All of these people on here looking back to find out whether they are related to royalty

Hunh?
My ancestors were the serfs and oiks who shovelled shit for centuries and died horribly young.
Discovering that none of my great-grandparents could even read and seeing where we are as a family now is astonishing to me.
Knowing that my great-grandfather ended up on the treadmill in jail simply for stealing a tin of food to feed his family is just awful.

It depresses me that people don't have an interest in the working men and women who built this country.

[SatinSandals]

Mine are fascinating and they are generally agricultural labourers. Where does the odd idea that you are looking for Royalty come from?

[nomorecrumbs]

harticus all my direct ancestors worked in t'mills in the 1800s, but go back further than that and I can find the lines that led to royalty.

It's quite fun wikipedia'ing random earls and knights and seeing how I'm related to them. I can't wait to get more free time to travel round the country looking at all the castle ruins that used to be my 11 x great-grandfather's (of which I have about what, 2000 of them? assuming some inbreeding).

[TheArmadillo]

I have a history degree. I have no interest in tracing family history.

I am estranged from my family and don't feel a connection with people, alive or dead, based on DNA. I have also spent a lot of time trying to establish my own identity and don't feel it should be based on/influenced by ancestors.

Fine if others want to do it as long they don't share it with me

[Valdeeves]

I've been trying for years to find out more about our maternal great grandmother as she adopted my grandmother.
Sadly, the trail always gets hopeful, relatives come forward, then they break contact. I guess adoption in that era is too raw for living relatives.
For my family it's quite emotional and very personal. - we will never know where certain features come from, where our roots began, we'll never have those beautiful old photos to show our children their past. Of course you have to live in the now bit history is an essential part of the human experience, and not being able to explore your own somehow leaves a sense of something lost within your own identity.

[CaterpillarCara]

Ohh - EustonRoad and I are related, Charlemagne is on my family tree too! (and probably about half of Europe's...)

[nomorecrumbs]

Charlemagne is the paternal grandfather of the wife of my 32nd great grand uncle. But that's just because my family tree is very badly researched.

[EustonRoad]

I think Charlemagne is the ancestor of everyone in Europe, European descent whether in Europe, the Americas, Australasia or the near East/North Africa. I once read that 1 in 4 males on Earth are descendants of William 1 and that Edward 111 has 50 million descendants. Even my vile FiL and I are related - DH and I have a common ancestor about 500 years ago!

Everyone in the British Isles is the fairly recent descendant of an immigrant.

[throckenholt]

Mine are fascinating and they are generally agricultural labourers.

Mine too - mixed in with lots of shoemakers, a couple of blacksmiths, hatters, straw plaiters, brickmakers - all solidly peasant :) Generally though they didn't die horribly young (although the one who died in early 40s after having 10 or more children is touching).

DH's family are little bit more upmarket .

One branch came over to the slums of central London from South West Ireland just after (or during) the potato famine. Pondering their lives and how they survived puts modern life in perspective.

I haven't (back to 1600s on many sides) managed to get to the same ancestor from two different routes, but I have had quite a few siblings in one family marrying siblings in another family.