AIBU not be at all interested in genealogy?

[Tedsshed]

Several members of my family, now that they're retired and need a project, have been charting our family tree. I've just had a conversation with one of them who's recently discovered that our great-great-great grandfather was a watchmaker. This is treated as if it's fascinating stuff and apparently explains why one of the current little grandsons has a fascination with Mecchano. I cooed and said how interesting and well done, as required, but I really don't care.

I have a friend who's adopted and is part of what turned out to be a huge Irish family where the predominant mood seems to have been one of misery and deprivation and escape to a better life. Famine, emigration, rape, illegitimate children given away, squalid deaths, lonely lives in the Australian outback, alcoholism, learning difficulties... I can understand wanting to know your family origins if you're adopted, but tracing new members of the family has become a bit of an obsession for her. She's now arranging meet-ups with people who are only very tangentially related. In fact she went to the US to meet one man she thought was a third cousin, only for it to turn out that he was someone who happened to share his name with the person she was looking for.

You only have to watch a few episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? to know that most of us come from very ordinary folk who've left very little mark behind. We'll never know what they were really like or what really motivated most of them. Maybe if one of my ancestors turned out to have done something heroic in the Napoleonic wars, or if one of my female relatives had been a Suffragette I'd want to find out more. But no. Apart from one branch that moved from Glasgow to London in the 19th century, all of them stayed in East Anglia or the South East all their lives and that's where they are now.

Am I the only person in the world who can't get excited about genealogy?

No, you’re not being unreasonable, and I say that as someone who finds genealogy fascinating. We’re all different and like different things.

It's just a hobby like hundreds of others.

Some people get excited by finding a rare stamp or seeing a new train, others find it interesting to see what an ancestor did.

Of course you're not.
Why are you so irritated that your relative enjoys it?

I hear you! My brother in law has been diligently plotting their family tree. He’s gone back generations. I can confirm that there is not one interesting thing about it. He’s got names, places of birth and death and dates. It’s utterly boring. We’re back in the 18th century now and they have all lived and died in London or the south east.

Yanbu. My late Aunt and now my cousin and brother have spent hours on our family tree. They tell me facts about relatives beyond my living memory and I fail to retain any of it! I just couldn't be less interested.

We may well be related. My ancestors were all diligently dull, too. Not a highwayman or bigamist among them.

I'm not. irritated that he enjoys it. I just don't understand what he gets out of it.

Bored me stiff when my family got into it. I’m just not interested. My dog’s pedigree, on the other hand ….

I care about the lives of my family members who I knew well and loved. So I'd be interested to know as far back as my great-grandparents. Anything more distant than that then I'm not bothered at all. There was a lot of fuss when my grandfather's cousin's children came to visit a few years back, but being totally honest, I was no more interested in meeting them than any other stranger.

I can understand it a bit more if you're descended from immigrants (like most Americans and Australians I guess) but my family has been here as long as anyone can remember so meh.

We're clearly not related then

I think it's mildly interesting to know what kind of background your ancestors had, but the chances are it's pretty ordinary from their society.

The DNA tests, find very distant cousins side of it doesn't have any interest to me.

The only thing remotely of note, is that my husband’s great grandfather was just 5’1 and known as ‘Titch’.

I’m just glad that gene didn’t proliferate.

This is actually a really sore point with me.
I had a very difficult relationship with my family, particularly my parents. I was the " black sheep " and was treated differently from my siblings. My sister was the " golden child"
My sister decided to do a family tree and dig into the family history. It was an obsession with her for years and years. She just kept talking about it all the time. And asking me what I could remember about what had been said about our relatives when we were younger. This was actually really painful for me.
No matter how much I told her I didn't want to know about my family she just kept going on and on.
Eventually I cut contact with her altogether. Not exclusively because of her genealogy obsession, but it certainly played a large part in it.
So I think raking up the past can be a very painful experience

It’s all fun and games until all the skeletons fall out of the closet 😂😂😂

People enjoy different things. I love genealogy, love looking at old censuses and records. I can't stand football - I don't understand why people get so passionate about it, but I wouldn't start a thread about it as I understand different people have different interests.

Fair dos. But as pp said, it's like any other hobby, fascinating to some boring to many others.
But to answer your question.
My Dad did a lot of family tree stuff. He enjoyed the process of research, tracking down records and making links. I found it intriguing seeing how some of my forebears moved from one location to another. In some instances being able to make guesses as to why from researching the history of that time (economics mostly). I also enjoyed imagining times and places. I've always enjoyed historical novels so it was an extension of that. I think also it gives some people a sense of connection.
I researched the occupants of my Victorian semi and really enjoyed both the process and liked imagining how these people ended up in the same place as did over a hundred years before me

I’ve done mine (for various reasons, mainly to do with my username!). I found it fascinating, but I do have a bloody odd family tree, with very few ‘normal’ stories. A lot of relatives have done unusual things and have had a lot of money (and then the things get written up in the press…)

YANBU. My DH has a second cousin - about 12-13 years older than him - who tracked him down about a decade ago. Last time he had seen her was the late 1970s (so about 36-37 years earlier) when he was a child virtually, and he only ever met her twice then, at a family wedding, and a family funeral.

She was obsessed with the 'family tree' and gave him photos of great uncles and great aunties, and also great, great uncles and great, great aunties, and first, second, third, and fourth cousins, going back some 170 years! (So like 1840s/1850s.) DH had zero interest, and she was trying to get him to pay half towards some thing or other that could trace back further. He was like 'I. Don't. CARE.'

She also moved to a village in Scotland (in her 60s,) despite never having visited Scotland in her life, (she and her DH.) After a few months there, she started to do research on the history of the village, the people who used to live there (a century ago, a century and a half ago, 2 centuries ago,) and the history of the school, and all the teachers that had been there in the past century. Also, the history of the Church, and all the vicars that had ever been there, and the old houses (built in the mid 1800s) that were demolished for a new build estate in the 1990s... And she wrote a book on it (self published.)

I don't think even most of the people who lived there (1500 or so,) even give a shit about it. 😆 I think she sold about 33 copies of the book! (Most to family and friends.)

My mum is into it. She's very good at it and I do take some interest but unfortunately she takes it as carte blanche to drone on for hours how George begat Hannah and Lily, and Lily begat Nigel who became a postman etc etc etc

I find it vaguely interesting but not enough to bother looking anything up myself! The only “interesting” things my brother found out in total was we have a great great grandfather who own a brewery, my ancestor is is his second son who did not inherit and left in a huff to seek his fortune (and didn’t) / ran away to London with the family maid depending on who you ask and my great grandfather fled Germany under kaiser wilhelm as Germany wasn’t great in the early 1900’s

It's interesting for about 5 minutes, but I wouldn't spend much time on it.

My paternal lot were farmers, maternal bunch were civil servants. Two with war time MBEs, one who died being gored by his own bull (when you are ten, that's quite entertaining).

One had a baby without a husband in the days when that was frowned upon, and was disowned as a consequence.

Nothing very exciting, I'm sure most families have similar if you go back far enough.

I couldn't ever be bothered to do all the research tbh, but one cousin did, and while I was on a trip to the USA, I met up with distant cousins who were on the family tree, and some wonderful new friendships began 😀 It was really lovely, and I'm so glad my cousin put the effort in 😀

I really like it, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

I barely keep in touch with most of the cousins I know. I don't want to create more social pressure on myself.
DH and I were given 23&me once and never used it. If my dad isn't my dad I've got zero interest in knowing. My brother is the boy I was raised with. I don't have vacancies for additional family members.

As far as I'm concerned the skeletons are the fun part!!

I'm not sure I'd want to know if I'm likely to have another genetic condition.

I once lived in a Victorian house and had all the deeds from every owner. I was fascinated finding out the info from census information for the first owners. I discovered where they worked and traced the eldest daughters marriage. I even found a local builder through a friend who had renovated our house in the early 90's. Poor lady had dementia, smeared faeces everywhere and tried to set fire to a room full of newspapers. The builders had to gut the place, the only thing they left was the original hallway tiled flooring.

So yes I'm much more interested in stalking others