The purpose behind genealogy.

Question

Just a thought - As genealogists, what is our primary concern, taking into consideration advances in DNA testing, the growing practice of couples to forego marriage, and the ever present assumption of fidelity which relies far more upon belief rather than concrete evidence.

Are we, as the name implies, concerned with the transmission of genetic material, or are we more interested in a few words on a scrap of paper.

I have to wonder how many trees are based solely upon assumption, just because a couple might be married, that is no proof that the husband is the father of the children, there could be thousands of us out there, all with entirely false data.

What are your thoughts ?

Comments

Well I can say that my primary concern is to find out where my roots lie and how my life became structured to assimilate to those roots. What part of my behavior is linked to that infinitesimal portion of my genetics that existed in my family from the very beginning. In my case, what part of Germanic origin still remains in my life? What part of my Welsh origin remains in my life and how can I honor that which began my family's existence? Perhaps one day I will be able to say that my family came about in a cave many hundreds of thousands of years ago and I will take a club and fetch my own dinner back to the place of my family's birth. One can only hope.

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Betty, with due respect, I  was asking a valid philosophical question, and not attempting to be facetious.

Answer 1

Exactly, the purpose of genealogy is an attempt to find the truth.

Comments

That is fine, in theory, Doug, but first we have to define exactly who's version of the 'truth' we accept, and that brings us straight back to belief, rather than real proof.

Suppose one of the ladies in our distant past ancestry had an affair, and produced a child, then everything from that point to the present day is incorrect, is it not ?

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You may never know that, all you can do is search.

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Why am I hearing the X-Files theme now?

The Truth is Out There...

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Indeed!

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But is it, Scott, exactly how would you propose to show irrefutable proof ?

If just one detail is incorrect, then the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

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I choose to look at it as a glass half-full.

If I knew little to nothing to start with.

And I gather 10 new facts with supporting information behind them.

And later, I find that one of those items was incorrect - I've still found out 9 solid facts about that person.

So while there will be the rare occasion when all the work is proven wrong, but it will not happen often. So it's all good. :)

Answer 2

The interaction between the paper trail and genetic tree is important to ensure that ancestral lines are not just a work of fiction. However, the nature/nurture question also comes into play. It is also interesting to understand the family that raised the child even if they are not biological parents.

Comments

Whilst it may be commendable to raise an others child, there is no genetic link.

We can test the DNA of two children, and from the evidence say that they had the same parents, BUT, unless  we also test the husband and wife, we cannot say with any certainty that those children are the issue of that marriage.

So, is it all based upon a conspiracy of lies ?

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It may not be lies. It may all be out in the open.

Not sure I understand what point you are trying to make Tim. If you can prove the DNA relationships from further back for both parents then you have evidence that the child is issue of the marriage.

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So, Lynda, how would you go about testing the DNA of an ancestor from the 1500s ? As I said, one error and the whole house of cards falls down.

I very much doubt that every single family, for the last 500 years or so, have been 100% truthful, given human nature such that it is.

I am not proposing we all give up on the idea, but it has to be taken with a liberal pinch of salt, we should not take every detail quite so seriously.

Answer 3

DNA is an excellent source but it can only go so far. Unless you can test every parent and child relationship you can never prove the relationship with DNA alone. The paper trail is sometimes an assumption but with enough care a very good case can be made.. I agree that the ideal would to find 100% proof but even with combining DNA and the paper trails most will still fall short. We must be like Crime Scene Investigators and follow the evidence to build the best case possible.

Answer 4

I think Tim's philosophical point that we cannot know everything with absolute certainty is quite valid. We rely upon a great deal of evidence that is man-made and subject to human error. And it seems unlikely that DNA, or any other form of scientific evidence, will ever be able to reconstruct the entire human tree as it evolved over centuries. So in my view, you must approach this with the attitude that you'll do the best you can with the resources you have. If, in your own mind, you cannot come to terms with the notion that perfection and 100% completion will be unattainable, then this is not the hobby for you.

I also think the quest for the truth is more likely to be successful in an environment where many of us can discover and analyze little pieces of it, and question and compare our data, than it is when everyone is working in isolation. It's only recent developments that have given us the tools to do that easily, and that makes me optimistic that the accuracy of our work can only improve over time.

Comments

Your optimism may well be possible for the future, Dennis, but not so for the distant past, therefore, we are building castles on the sand. However strong the structure is built in the future, the footings are very unstable.

Yes, I can come to terms with the reality, but let us not take it all too seriously, swallow too many 'pinches of salt', and you would become sick.

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I'm not disagreeing.  I'm also skeptical of a lot of the data I see that is hundreds of years old.  My point is that I think we're better off with many sets of eyes looking for it, looking at it, and evaluating it in relation to other little pieces of data.  That still doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be able to ferret out every truth every time.

Answer 5

I think, as genealogists, we rely far too much on genetics. If a child shows in a birth certificate a certain set of parents, that extends that child's right to the family's history.

Comments

Hardly truthful though, is it George ?

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Genealogy Road Show last week stated that in case of adoptions, they follow the family who raised the child, not the genetic parents.  

So much for facts.

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I agree, nothing is 100% reliable in genealogy, even a birth certificate.  A birth certificate though is a great deal more reliable than a DNA test, which only deals in " percentage of possibilities ". I think the end game is to hold on to our history and create a foundation for ourselves and share that foundation with others in our family tree. A document or test with a possible error does not, by itself, destroy that foundation.

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That really surprises me !!! I wonder what the gods of genealogical standards would have to say about that.

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answered rather than commented

Answer 6

Genealogy =γενεαλογία genealogia from γενεά genea, "generation" and λόγος logos, "knowledge",

500 years:ago we each had ~1,000,000 genealogical great (/\20) but of those more than 99% are not represented in our genome (Prof Rosie Redfield, Univ.Brit. Columbia)

 To me,  just looking at genetic relationships does look rather pointless since most of our ancestors are not our genetic ancestors. There are of course more stable YDNA and mitochondrial connections but these only account for a small proportion of our ancestors.

What is to me far more important and interesting is to study  families and individual members of ancestral families, setting their history within a wider historical context.  It was those families coupled with the events of their time  that led to me or any other individual.    Does it matter if Emma Linnett was really the daughter of John Billing if she grew up  and experienced life as John Linnett's daughter?

 Just a list of dates of births , marriages and deaths; ie a few words on scraps of paper,  doesn't seem to have a lot of purpose either though sometimes that is all that remains.  (it is amazing  though what can sometimes  be found even about some of  our most mundane ag lab ancestors)   Conversely, there  may be a lot of information about a family  but little to confirm who begat  who.  I know quite a lot about  one ancestral family from their detailed household inventories and from manorial records but little to make accurate connections between individuals and so they have no place on wikitree.

I think this approach can still be called genealogy, since it's purpose is to seek knowledge and understanding of the generations that preceded an individual (though I would  still prefer to use the term family historian) Its a long way from looking strictly at genetic ancestors.

Comments

European genealogy is different.  It's history in fine detail.  Every landed family is a little saga about the rise and fall of its fortunes.  Usually it starts with a self-made man, not really one of the Conqueror's dozens of generals.  Usually it ends badly.

I drive past their houses and farms and now I know who lived there.

I forget which ones I might be descended from.  But those lines are probably wrong, and there'll be others I don't know about.  Statistically I expect I'm descended from the average number of murderers, wife-beaters, bent judges and atheist clergy.  But there's so little specific information about any individual, you learn more about them from the others.

It's a tapestry.  Who's to say the threads aren't crossed.

Answer 7

I have a couple in my tree where she is 25 and pregnant and he is 50 and a "Sojourner" - which is how he was listed on the parish record. They were married 4 months before the baby was born.

We will probably  never know if the oldest child was the husbands biological child or not. The remaining 7 children in the family probably were his, but the first child? We have no idea. Fortunately I am not descended from that first child, but the question does remain.

2 generations down in the same family, the same thing happens again. She is 4 months pregnant when she married the man she claims to be the father. Only this time he probably is because they emigrate from England and take passage on a ship to New Zealand - probably to get away from the shame of it all. Again, I am not descended from the first born child, but there is still the tiny question of - Is the named father the real father or not?

And lastly is my own mother. She was born out of wedlock but no father was named on the birth certificate and my biological grandmother  certainly never married him. Why not? Could he have have already been married? We have no idea who my maternal biological grandfather is so I have a big HOLE in my tree!!

I am just trying to find the truth!!

Comments

With regards to the comment that the Genealogical Roadshow follows the adopted parents tree and not the biological parents tree, I personally do not agree with that.

What is the purpose of tracking down a family that is not related to you by blood at all? That is not logical to me. Blood is thicker than water. Blood ties are far more important than legal ties - IMO.

Lets go back to my mother as an example. My mother had NO IDEA that she was adopted until after her mother died in 1980. She ws devastated to learn that she was adopted. She was in her 40s at the time and had 3 daughters of her own.

I on the other hand was furious. I had been very secure in that I knew who my family, my grandparents were and I felt safe. Now all of a sudden I lost half my family. I know this is not my mothers fault, but I still blame her for the fact that I now have a big hole in my tree. It took me 15 years to persuade, (constantly asking) her to get her original birth certificate after the law was changed to allow adult adoptees to apply for their original birth certificates.  Once she had it, she gave it to me and said, now dont ask me anything more.

She did at one point ask me to do the family tree for her adopted family. I was reluctant to do this, but I did do it,. Fortunately her adopted fathers family turned out to be already well recorded. Her adopted mothers family, is not done at all.

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My mother refuses to get any DNA tests done. And even if I could do them, they are expensive and we cannot really afford them.

Answer 8

The genealogy is supposed to tell a story.

Sir John, whose daughter married a Duke, is believed to be the son and heir of Henry and his wife Mary.

Then DNA casts doubt.

At this point there are two possibilities.  One is that the genealogy has gone horribly wrong.  We have confused different people, and misidentified the people in the records.  We should be looking for a different Henry or a different John.  The whole story is entirely different from what we thought.

The other is that Henry unknowingly raised a child who wasn't genetically his.  Apart from that footnote, the story is just as we thought.  Sir John got the job and the property and the contacts on the strength of Henry believing he was the father, and the real father had no discernible impact.

Genealogy is mostly about identifying the people in the records.  DNA can help with that, but not too simplistically.  The fact that B can't be the genetic son of A might not mean that he can't be the named son of A.

The records tell the story, because the explanation of events is in what people believe.

Comments

And that, R.J. Horace, brings us full circle. Once again we are relying upon majority belief, and not necessarily truth or fact. Just because lots of folk choose to believe it, that does not mystically convert a lie to a truth. Truth is an absolute, it does not require belief to make it so.

Answer 9

Excellent question. I would say we have to consider both ends of the spectrum. Documents like birth, church, census are the core of our research. But DNA is defiinitely useful to confirm or deny what is shown on paper.

I think one should also consider the time period and culture of their family when weighing the validity of sources. In the past, infidelity was less common. My ancestors lived in the "Bible belt" and by individual and group belief structure, did not tend to fornicate. But this is not absolute.

However, in the end no source is perfect. We can only gather all the sources we can and strive to make the best choice based on a preponderance of the evidence.