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“If you trace your lineage ... you’re very likely to find out things you may have been better off not knowing.”

Like what?”

I was wondering the same. The ones you can most easily trace way, way back descend from royalty, but having such ancestors doesn’t make you special. Nearly everyone whose ancestors came here before the Revolution can trace back to royalty.

Some of my fave ancestors weren’t royalty, but pig thieves. Very clever pig thieves. In early Colonial times, the settlers would mark their pigs by cutting notches in their ears and turn them out in the woods to fatten up on the acorn mast. Each family had a special distinctive “mark”. Then they’d round them back up for hog-killin’ time. My dastardly ancestors would snitch their cousins’ hogs and eat them up, which did not set well with said cousins. Finally, the third year it happened, the cousins called in the Constable (who turned out to also be an ancestor, but through a different line).

Oh what to do? My terrible pig-thieving ancestors cut the ears completely off those poor piggies! And claimed that was their “mark” when the Constable came to investigate. Well, the Constable was no dummy and didn’t buy it, of course. But there was no proof, the ears being long gone, so while the cousins got their pigs back, my ancestors did not end up in the stocks or the pokey or wherever pig thieves ended up in those days.

It’s funnier when you read it in the Colonial records, in the language and spelling of the time.

Actually, genaeology is a great way to get kids interested in history. You learn how people actually lived back then, about patterns of migration, and develop a great appreciation for those who came before us and made America a truly great nation, whether as farmers, blacksmiths, soldiers, shopkeepers, whatever. Extra bonus is they learn how to do primary research. You also come to appreciate why it was called “The American Experiment”. This had never really been done before. It was new, it was risky — but thanks to the great wisdom of our Founding Fathers, it turned out pretty darn well.

Now we’re in serious danger messing it up, of course. :(