Suzanne Bright in Coral Springs, Florida, writes:
A friend of mine has traced her ancestry back eleven generations on her mother’s side of her family and eight generations on her father’s side. I know about my ancestors back to my great-grandparents, but I don’t care to find out about earlier ones. One of my great-grandparents, now deceased, was imprisoned for a crime, and I don’t want to possibly find out about other criminals or other unsavory people in my family from the past. Do you think this is a valid reason for my not wanting to research my family tree? My friend says that tracing her family tree was “so much fun” and she asks me from time to time for me to trace my own.
Marilyn responds:
I think your reason is good. Many people enjoy tracing their family trees because the activity is a bit like solving a mystery (i.e., detective work), and the results make them feel connected to others over time, even if the relationships make no difference in their own lives and say nothing about them personally. (People who don’t get this feeling don’t trace their ancestry.) And, of course, they hope for apparently positive, colorful forebears (at least superficially–finding the name and occupation of a person says virtually nothing about him or her) that they can be happy (or brag) about or, at worst, discover to be really boring. But they do risk letdowns and getting the creeps by finding people who are notably bad characters. If you’re the sort of person who would be bothered by this, I suggest that you don’t trace your ancestry. As for myself, I’m well aware of one very well-known person in my own ancestry, and I’m quitting while I’m ahead.
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