Hello Halfasheep I agree with your mixed reasons.  Why we do it can be complicated. It's good to hear of people who are quite young searching ancestors.  I did have a theory that it happened in later life but........ its good to be wrong,  
Can you tell me why you are half a sheep? When my children were young  other children at school asked them if they were a scouser or a woolyback (a sheep?).  Lately I discovered from one of my son's that the term "woolyback" isn't about sheep but about cotton mill workers in Lancashire (as opposed to Liverpudlians - scousers) who were covered in white wooly fluff from the Lancashire mills.  I wonder how old this description is.  Any ideas?
Jen