Ancestors - what a strange idea.

[Thinking Aloud]

In this thread LBoN mentioned that her ancestors emigrated from England to Australia in the late 1700s. That set me thinking, as I've always had a small curiosity about my own heritage, but the only time I've plotted my family "tree" it's turned into a "hedge".

We have a particularly selective view of who are ancestors are - and it's most commonly based on the paternal line of the family name. While this is a convenient route to trace, is it any more valid than any other route?

Using LBoN's example, she has ancestors who moved to Australia in say 1790, let's say age 20. If each subsequent generation was born when the parents were 25 (for sake of argument) there would be around eight more generations from those ancestors up to LBoN - she has something like 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents from the period of the late 1700s.

So I guess I'm wondering whether any one of those 256 is individuals more biologically significant than any of the others. And who else might we find in our family hedge if we could look up those other pathways?

[starr]

In this thread LBoN mentioned that her ancestors emigrated from England to Australia in the late 1700s. That set me thinking, as I've always had a small curiosity about my own heritage, but the only time I've plotted my family "tree" it's turned into a "hedge".

We have a particularly selective view of who are ancestors are - and it's most commonly based on the paternal line of the family name. While this is a convenient route to trace, is it any more valid than any other route?

Using LBoN's example, she has ancestors who moved to Australia in say 1790, let's say age 20. If each subsequent generation was born when the parents were 25 (for sake of argument) there would be around eight more generations from those ancestors up to LBoN - she has something like 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents from the period of the late 1700s.

So I guess I'm wondering whether any one of those 256 is individuals more biologically significant than any of the others. And who else might we find in our family hedge if we could look up those other pathways?

I was referring to my paternal line of the family name. I don't think that any one line is more important than any other line, it's just old fashioned convention and also provides information about where your 'name' came from I guess. Genetically there is nothing special about the paternal line of the family name as distinct from any other line. My other family lines were from Scotland and Germany. Go back far enough and my ancestors were African.

One very interesting (and some may say embarrassing) fact about my family tree is that one of my maternal ancestral lines actually joins up to a common ancestor with my paternal line of the family name (yes I am inbred ). I think that my Mum and Dad have the same Great-Great-Great Grandfather (not sure if I've got the amount of Greats correct). So my birth surname (which I still have because I didn't change my name after marriage) is actually on both sides of my family tree (maternal and paternal). Neither Mum nor Dad had any idea of this relationship (4th cousins I think) when they got married. Small town in rural NSW Australia .... what can I say.



EDIT: I just looked up some of my family history stuff.. I was wrong about late 1700s... my paternal family name ancestor arrived in Australia on the 26th of April 1838.

Just checked the amount of greats too. My parents actually had a common set of great-great grandparents. That means that I have one less set of great-great-great grandparents than most people.

[Thinking Aloud]

Hope you don't mind using yours as an example. We all tend to be biased down the family name side of things. The "inbreeding" ( ) in your case would reduce the number of ancestors you had at that time though.

Anyway, this was purely a food-for-thought exercise.

[starr]

Hope you don't mind using yours as an example. We all tend to be biased down the family name side of things. The "inbreeding" ( ) in your case would reduce the number of ancestors you had at that time though.

Anyway, this was purely a food-for-thought exercise.

No worries mate

I just found out some more factual info and added it as an EDIT to my earlier post.

[Hermit]

We have a particularly selective view of who are ancestors are - and it's most commonly based on the paternal line of the family name. While this is a convenient route to trace, is it any more valid than any other route?

Although there is evidence for some personality traits being genetic I regard cultural heritage as way more influential.