[WaterDragon]

How can a country progress if you face backwards all the time and look at the past?

Even if you can claim a line from someone famous and respected, how does that help when there are probably plenty of scoundrels also in that line? LOL My husband's family are descendents of John Adams.....but also of that outlaw Jesse James! Along with a few preachers that got run off by their congregations! It's all just silly.

[cyborg]

Really I just see both sides engaging in this ancestor worship, which I find pointless. You are right. It's as if somehow genius will be channeled down through the genes. Not true. All of my family tree are poor people. Poor Italians, poor Spanish sugar cane cutters, etc. People are trying to derive some weird sense of self esteem from the ether instead of relying on God and their immediate family.