Why are americans that obsessed with genealogy? šŸ¤”

Lounge
21

I think a lot of Americans think getting obsessed with race somehow validates their experiences more - like some kind of historical insight into themselves. Where as actually it just creates division and barriers between the populace.

People should be able to know their heritage without letting it define them.

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22

I donā€™t know my dad or anything about him thatā€™s why I plan on doing it.

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23

The opposite is actually true. Iā€™m 65, and thereā€™s a lot of people even older than Iā€™m tracing their family history.

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24

My matches at My heritage

USA

5,049

United Kingdom

2,431

Australia

586

Canada

452

New Zealand

310

Norway

297

France

211

Sweden

186

Germany

161

Ireland

153

Netherlands

142

Denmark

115

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25

I used to find it baffling, also. But I know my ancestry. I think the thing that makes it so uniquely american is a combination of factors:

  • many people here only know their ancestry going back about 50-100 years, due to poor record keeping on immigration logs
  • many of our ancestors were refugees fleeing some major catastrophe that they never told their children about. The echoes of their trauma get passed down out of context. Figuring out where it started can help recontextualize it and point towards solutions.
  • there are laws in the US that govern Native Americans differently, provided you can prove you are Native American. Most families have some story about being part Native in some way, and people want to know for sure so they know how the law applies to them.
  • a lot of what people know of their history gets passed down in stories. The stories get distorted over time. People are curious to find out what the truth is.
  • cultural identities are a lot different over here than they would be in a homeland. Over there, people celebrate their past, and reaffirm their connections to their culture in the present. Over here, a lot of identity is rooted in grieving a home that no longer exists. We have to piece together our memories of what was there, and very few of us will ever be able to see any tangible evidence of an ancestor that died before we were born. And we have no way of knowing if the memories are accurate, since they were told to us by our parents, who remember it from stories their parents told.

I think it is easy to find the genealogy obsession dumb when you have always known the answers to your questions.

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26

With some of it, its partially religious too. Iā€™m not going into why but in my faith its very important to know your ancestors.

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28

Iā€™m a descendant of the Mayflower bunch. This fact makes me part of who I am. A lot of it is negative. - the tendency toward deprivation, risk taking and simple mindedness.

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29

I like finding out the stories of my family. The true stories, the gritty stuff.

And it was really interesting to find @firemonkey and I share common ancestors. Without geneaology, Iā€™d never know that.

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30

Iā€™m struggling to find the match that has her.

I have one Campbell/Tollemache match that also has quite a few Native American ancestors. Itā€™s fascinating(well it is to me at least) Do you or your matches have any Poythress ancestors?

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31

I found it super interesting where my ancestors all came from. I think for me, its because im white Australian. Which made me feel kind of like i was living in a stolen land from invasion yonks ago. Its hard to get a sense of identity as an aussie when you grow up in your non-native land. In asutralia when someone asks where are you from or whatever, people usually respond with their ancestry before coming to australia. Thats what ive found in my experience anyway. Becuause in my view the true native aussies are the aboriginal culture that existed here for thousands of years. I feel europe is my true homeland. Even though ive never been there in my life.

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32

Has who?

And I donā€™t know about them. I just meant the Campbells.

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33

One of my matches that has Mary Margaret Campbell ,daughter of Archibald Campbell 10th earl, also has quite a few Native American ancestors. The Poythress question was a long shot as to whether you or your matches had any Poythress.

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34

Oh, ok.

I have (supposedly) Native American in me, Lumbee tribe which has a lot of European blood. Lumbees were known as Croatan up until the 1900s and they took in a colony of settlers in North Carolina that were dying. Could be some of those.

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35

I think it does no damage to talk about your genealogy. Almost everyone Iā€™ve ever met considers themselves to be Americans first, and they think our genealogy to be just an object of passing interest. Itā€™s interesting to discuss your heritage. Iā€™ve heard it said that the original ancestry of America was substantially changed by the Civil War, which was the bloodiest war the U.S. has ever fought. We lost 600,000 people out of a population of 35 million in the Civil War. In World War II we lost 400,000 out of a population 135 million. Quite a bit of immigration went on before the twentieth century. A lot of people who decry current immigration donā€™t know that they have more immigrant ancestry than they know. It was from a earlier generation of immigrants. As far as I know, I am German, Scotch Irish, and Chickasaw Indian, with some other ethnic blood I donā€™t know about. Iā€™m not too worried about it.

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36

Iā€™ve snagged a few loads of commodities from the Native American depot, but I quit doing that when I found out that SNAP benefits are a better deal for a guy like me. Most of the food I buy can be heated up in a microwave in less than five minutes.

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37

My matches mainly have Cherokee or Powhatan. Iā€™ve not come across any Lumbee. At My heritage I have * #####

Southern USA

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and New York as low confidence genetic regions.

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38

One of my matches has

Red Crawfish, Miko Lusa (Black Chief)? , Chief of ShƄktci homma Tribe

Payne Family Tree

Birth
c. 1709ā€¢Chakchiuma Territory, Oktibbeha County, Indian, Territory, Mississippi, USA

Death
1779ā€¢Shakchihoma of Choctaw Nation, Mississippi West, Tennessee

Shu- Ma- Ka (Shumaka ) (Choctaw massacred Shak-chi-homa & Chickasaw Tribes bef Rev. War),

Payne Family Tree

Birth
1735ā€¢Okla Falaya, Chocktaw, Shakchihome clan, West Tennessee

Death
28 Jan 1838ā€¢ā€œTrail of Tearsā€, Cole Creek, Natchez Trace, Mississippi, age 120

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39

None of my folks.

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41

Very unlikely.

Jesus only had a handful of followers while he was alive.

Maybe a few hundred.

But I guess thereā€™s no way to know for sure,

So we can imagine what we want.

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42

Bill Clinton said it well once when he stated that ā€˜America is the nation of immigrantsā€™. I was an immigrant by myself also in America and then I left. My Green Card has expired already (well in 2005). In the future I am going to stay in Europe.

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