[Habibi]

“I’ve got a whole bunch of mystery lines, genealogically speaking, on both maternal and paternal sides”

Yeah, I used to do a bit of that sort of thing and came to the conclusion that it wasn't a terribly good idea. Unless there's a reason to track genetic diseases (or if you're Mormon), noodling around in who really begat who can be rather eye opening, pointless, and impossible all at the same time.

I found I really didn't want to know some of the stuff I discovered. Coming to the conclusion I was committing genealogical voyeurism, I've adopted the Popeye philosophy on researching the family tree, “I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam.” It works lots better for me.

[allmendream]

Geneticists have shown that genealogy charts are only about 90% accurate when assigning paternity. So while a genealogy chart is an interesting window into the history of the family it gets less and less accurate as you go back generation by generation because while maternity is assured, paternity is always doubtful.

As the saying goes... “Momma’s baby, daddy's maybe.”