Paper trails and decades of research, what is the point?

[melba_schmelba]

I think genealogy perhaps is not for me in many ways if DNA testing is revealing family secrets long thought to have been buried forever, and no doubt if I did DNA, it would reveal some many not be my blood ancestors?

I know people will disagree strongly but I always feel if an ancestor is not a blood ancestor, then they are not a real ancestor, as they are not actually responsible for my existence, or anyone else thought to have descended from them.

Well, this is not actually the case though. If a father knowingly or unknowingly brought up a child as their own, going out to work and bringing back money to cloth and feed, perhaps educate or pay for apprenticeship or more, then surely that parenting, could have made the difference between that person even living to adulthood and whether that person prospered in the future. Whereas the supposed biological father never did anything to that person's continuing existence or future prosperity.

Shall I just use tracing my ancestry as simply family history instead of hoping I blood descend from ancestors, some of whom I have become attached to for some odd reason. Uncertainty is something I seem hard to accept, even if it is quite small. Since my father died, it has worsened the possibility of my tree having NPE's.

In the end, when you go back to your great great great great grandparents, you will entirely have lost some DNA of some people in that generation. And as you back into further generations, the number of genealogical ancestors you have no DNA connection to increases dramatically. So I think we need to accept that the concept of genealogy includes the likelyhood that a certain percentage of your ancestors will be NPEs. But from what I posted above, that doesn't invalidate their connection to you.

[jbml]

I am entirely with melba here ... a person's identity isn't merely the product of the sperm and egg that fused to create them in embryo form. It derives from their whole life experience; and the people who they identified as "mummy" and "daddy" (or "uncle John", or whoever) in the formative years of their childhood, who provided them with a home environment (whether stable or otherwise) and were always (or sometimes) there for them when needed play an immensely important part in turning them into who they were.

To ignore them is to miss out on a large part of the story.

[brigidmac]

I have just messaged a distant match on one family line who is descended from my mother's great aunt
All our research matches til we get to her great great grandfather ( his 5th great grandfather ) we have same name but I have 1789 as birth year he has 1791
The tree is closed but he says he's traced back to edward III

I have come to a dead end mine was a base born son of a single lady only have 1 more generation .
I expect they won't share their tree if there is a chance my facts are more accurate and they will lose royal collection

[jbml]

.
I expect they won't share their tree if there is a chance my facts are more accurate and they will lose royal collection

Isn't that always the way?

I really can't understand why people are so keen to find royalty in their tree, though. Where's the fun in that? All the research has been done ages ago by someone else, and there's nothing to do except copy their results.

I'm having FAR more fun chasing elusive ancestors around the gutters of Victorian London ... and learning some amazing things along the way!

[brigidmac]

I agree JB
Far more interesting to know that a base born son of a single mother became a master mariner without the help of a royal sponsor !

[Ruskie]

Generally there are more records to be found related to royalty as they left more of a paper trail. Think that’s the main reason it can be quite fruitful to be able to tap into those sorts of families.

[coombs]

I think genealogy perhaps is not for me in many ways if DNA testing is revealing family secrets long thought to have been buried forever, and no doubt if I did DNA, it would reveal some many not be my blood ancestors?

I know people will disagree strongly but I always feel if an ancestor is not a blood ancestor, then they are not a real ancestor, as they are not actually responsible for my existence, or anyone else thought to have descended from them.

Well, this is not actually the case though. If a father knowingly or unknowingly brought up a child as their own, going out to work and bringing back money to cloth and feed, perhaps educate or pay for apprenticeship or more, then surely that parenting, could have made the difference between that person even living to adulthood and whether that person prospered in the future. Whereas the supposed biological father never did anything to that person's continuing existence or future prosperity.

Shall I just use tracing my ancestry as simply family history instead of hoping I blood descend from ancestors, some of whom I have become attached to for some odd reason. Uncertainty is something I seem hard to accept, even if it is quite small. Since my father died, it has worsened the possibility of my tree having NPE's.

In the end, when you go back to your great great great great grandparents, you will entirely have lost some DNA of some people in that generation. And as you back into further generations, the number of genealogical ancestors you have no DNA connection to increases dramatically. So I think we need to accept that the concept of genealogy includes the likelyhood that a certain percentage of your ancestors will be NPEs. But from what I posted above, that doesn't invalidate their connection to you.

NPE's are not evenly spread I don't think, it can depend on several factors. If the husband was in a job which involved him working away a lot, or was in the army, then the NPE rate can increase. It is averaged about 2 to 3% of your ancestors will be NPE's so that sounds about right. So it is still exceptional. 2 to 3% out of 100%.

[Rosinish]

I feel this thread has been viewed as a bit controversial owing to the lack of replies in it's existence of over 6 months.

Posted 22 Aug 2022
Views (when I last looked) 14,570
Replies 33 (including 6 of your own) by 19 posters

This is a 'Genealogy' site where most of us are very interested in our Family History/Genealogy regardless whether there are NPEs/Adoptions or children being passed off as their g/parents' children etc.

"Shall I just use tracing my ancestry as simply family history instead of hoping I blood descend from ancestors"...

It's a decision you have to make for yourself as we all have our own thoughts on who/what we include in our 'Family' trees.

Personally, I have a habit of investigating any/every avenue I can in my 'Family History' story because it interests me but because I'm hooked I don't think I'd be 'detaching' anyone I found to be a NPE or otherwise...I'd be more inclined to try & find where the connection really was although via DNA there's a chance of finding who the biological parent was.

Lighten up...as the lack of responses from 14.570 viewers seem to agree 

Annie