Leo McKinstry, I found a statue of your uncle.
Posted on 05/08/2008 3:18:15 PM PDT by forkinsocket
Leo McKinstry says the current craze for genealogy reflects an unhealthy combination of snobbery and inverse snobbery, and is a poor replacement for national history
When I visited the National Archives at Kew last week the place was full of them, scurrying about with their plastic wallets in hand, a look of eager concentration on their faces. It was impossible to escape their busy presence as they whispered noisily to relatives or whooped over the discovery of some new piece of information.
These were the followers of one of Britain’s fastest-growing craze, the mania for researching family history. Studying bloodlines and tracing ancestral roots was once the preserve of the aristocracy. Today, as I saw at the National Archives, it has become a favourite activity of the British public. We are becoming a nation of obsessive genealogists. According to a recent study by the polling organisation YouGov, 28 per cent of British people have tried at some stage to trace their family tree, and 10 per cent of the population are currently doing so. It is said that genealogy websites are the most commonly visited on the internet after pornography. The website Genes Reunited, which claims to be ‘the UK’s number one family tree and genealogy site’, boasts that it has no fewer than eight million members. Another major web company, Find My Past, says that it has a registered usership of 1.32 million people and a mailing list of almost 600,000.
Ten years ago, there was just one mainstream genealogy magazine. Now there are seven. Another indicator of this fixation with family history is the phenomenal success of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, whose weekly episodes feature different celebrities tracing their roots.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.co.uk ...
Perhaps Mr. McKinstry (with whom I share surnames) was just disappointed (as I was) to discover that the family name was not a distinct clan name unto itself with a designated plaid.
In truth, I have nothing against geneaology, but I’d really like to know the stories of my ancestors not just dates of birth, marriage and death. The real stories are few and far between.
He’s just another socialist who thinks he’s better than the rest of us.
My guess is that the author’s family were probably a bunch of drunken slobs from Scotland or some other such ignominious band of ne’er do wells.
Personally, I get frustrated trying to go back much more than 100-150 years, since our family were all in the Pogroms (and worse) of Eastern Europe at that time. However, I’ve become pretty fanatic about preserving what I can of my parents generational stuff. As I’ve learned through my friends at the County Historical Society, what we may see as pretty ordinary now could be a serious mirror into this time when looked at by 22nd Century historians.
The genealogical information and the medical condition dovetailed. He was able to find a surgical team prepared to correct the problem.
Eventually we will have a national DNA registry. That can be combined with genetic information to assist doctors in diagnosing and treating serious diseases.
BTW, I've since found we have a number of other interesting gene variations that can be of concern if we keep living in these horrid Southern latitudes.
Mush you huskies, mush! We goin' up North to Alaska (if not in this generation, the next maybe).
Nobody ought to be upset because their ancestors weren't noble or rich or famous.
But genealogy does have its own interest.
It can demonstrate just how connected you may be to the country's history.
It's possible to attach too much importance to ancestry, but it's a little like rhythm or rhyme in literature.
It points out connections that we wouldn't notice otherwise and gives an immediacy to things that could otherwise appear dry and irrelevant.
Complete and utter horse$hit.
Most genealogists now more American history than other graduates of Liberal Arts Colleges.
Leo McKinstry, I found a statue of your uncle.
I have found that ancestors fought in every war since the Revolutionary War. History was one of my favorite subjects in high school.
In the case of my family, genealogy provided some healing.
Unanswered questions, unaddressed issues, absent family members.
And I agree, genealogy is a great way to study history.
I just love it!
The Genographic Project (Have Your DNA Checked, Find Your Roots)
In one branch of my family I found an interesting chain. A famous Lord Mayor of London whose father was a great West Indies Plantation owner who was one of the largest slave owners in the new world. Within about five generations he had a decendent of the same name that was an acquaintance of John Brown and was accused of being one of the Pottowatome raiders.
An example, we had all these folks who used Revolutionary War warrants to acquire land in the Ohio Valley ~ but none of them were quite old enough to be veterans of the war, and none of them had a father or grandfather who was in the military to earn the warrants.
So, where did they get them if they didn't buy them (also a common practice but there was no evidence they'd purchased them from a vet or vet's family).
Eventually we found they'd had cousins, brothers, uncles and other close relatives, but not direct ancestors, in the Maryland 400 ~ which saw 256 of its number dead at the end of a battle in Brooklyn where they covered George Washington's evacuation to safety. They literally saved the Revolution.
http://www.somdnews.com/stories/053106/entefea173542_32080.shtml
I meant to include you, with Jeff, in my post at 31.
My mother's side came to America from Naples a century ago, but they came to Naples from Spain during the Inquisition. I suspect they were Jews fleeing Torquemada.
My father's side came to America from Messina at the same time, but they came to Sicily from Greece centuries earlier. (Don't ask about the defrocked priest in that lineage.)
 |
Genetic Genealogy  |
| Send FReepmail if you want on/off GGP list Marty = Paternal Haplogroup O(2?)(M175) Maternal Haplogroup H |
|
| GG LINKS: African Ancestry DNAPrint Genomics FamilyTree DNA mitosearch Nat'l Geographic Genographic Project Oxford Ancestors RelativeGenetics Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation Trace Genetics ybase ysearch |
|
| The List of Ping Lists | |
The one thing I've learned from studying my family tree is that there's a reason some distant relatives are distant.
Having throughly researched the name “McKinstry” I discovered that it used to be spelled “My Kins Try” and that Leo is an unknown son of Elvis and entitled to half of all of Elvis’ earnings. Go for it Leo!
(maybe this will keep Leo busy instead of worrying about library patrons.)
This thread reminds me of a Monty Python parody commercial where the fast-talking announcer sells a nerdy twit on the notion of plastering his walls with antique photographs of other peoples’ heroic or noble ancestors, and then declares,
“And now, pretend that these forebears are part of YOUR past!!”
(The twit flies rapturously around his overdecorated room).
Anyway, I too look forward to meeting relatives gone long before I was born. At least in Heaven, we’ll all be speaking English.
;^)
inspired genius.
Some of my kin's marriage records (in Texas) where packed up & shipped off to Spain when the Spaniards gave up Mexico.
You jest. I have it on good authority you’ll need to know Skolt Sa’ami, and maybe reformed Sumerian.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
