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Ancestor Tracking: Creating Your Personal Book of Genesis
| Article
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13141 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1987 |
2,808 Words |
| Author
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John Elvin
John Elvin is a columnist for the Washington Times. He has
written extensively on housing topics for periodicals. |
There are many reasons why a person might want to create a personal Book of Genesis, with lists of who begat whom through the ages. A common motive is the feeling of self-importance one acquires after discovering royalty or other famous folks hanging about in the family tree. But the search goes beyond providing fodder for cocktail party chitchat or a means of entry into some exclusive club.
Since Alex Haley's influential book Roots, self-knowledge has been a dominant reason for engaging in genealogy - ancestor tracking, you might call it. It has become a form of therapy. Knowing about our ancestors can generate pride and may provide guidelines for improving our own lives.
The search begins with the question: Who am I? The question becomes a quest. As a youngster I was informed by my mother that a drop or two of British blueblood coursed through my veins, from her side of the family, of course. (Personally, I would have been happier knowing I had descended from Tarzan or one of the cowboy movie heroes.) But given the mathematics of generations, each of us could surely claim descendency from some aristocrat or other.
For example, a genealogical researcher in 1984 published the news that twenty to thirty million Americans were cousins of the Princess of Wales. And when we go back to the good ship Mayflower, we find that twenty-three of her passengers left descendents - who now number in the millions.
In many ways the bitter truth is in the answer my maternal grandfather used to give when asked if we were related to royalty or heroic soldiers or even pirates. "It's not where you came from, it's who you are that counts," he would say.
Grandfather Legge
A decent sort of answer but somewhat unfair. He was the last male of his line, out of a family by the name of Legge from Garrett County in western Maryland. Because he never recorded his family story, much of it undoubtedly died with him.
Fortunately, he left several documents that appear to trace the early family history from their arrival in England in the twelfth or thirteenth century as the Italian "della Lega" family, to their departure from England for America. There are sufficient earls, viscounts, dukes, lord high sheriffs, lord mayors, admirals, generals and so forth
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