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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1996-02 > 0823284621


From: Don Widener <>
Subject: Re: Royal Lines
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 13:10:21 -0500


Gordon:

At 11:41 PM 2/1/96 -0500, you wrote:

>Chris Bennett wrote about the relationship of adultery to genealogical
>investigations. Let me observe that one can do genealogical research
>which is not based on genetic transferrals, but on what records show.

Not so, mon ami, by definition.

Genealogy: "A record or account of the ancestry and descent of a person,
family or group."

Ancestry: "Ancestral descent, lineage"

Lineage: "Lineal descent from an ancestor"

Ancestor: "One from whom a a person is descended"

If you ignore "genetic transferrals" then whatever you're doing, it's not
genealogy.

>If someone is an ancestor whose father is not the husband of the
>mother shown in the records, but someone unknown, one still has
>in the husband someone who had an influence in one's family lines.

Perhaps an influence on the raising of a child, but none whatsoever on the
genetic makeup of that child.

>One of the peculiar benefits of genealogical linking to one's self is
>that it often makes abstract historical people (so to speak) into real
>people in a way that transforms the study of history for those
>receptive to this sort of thing.

But Gordon, wouldn't it be so much better to know your actual ancestors,
their battles and hardships and the world they lived in, rather than a phony
linkage to unconnected and perhaps mythical persons?

Lets strive to do _good_ research...the kind our descendants can be glad we did!

Regards, even in disagreement,

Don
* Don Widener <> *
* Researching WIDENER : MARTIN : OSBORN : WEAVER *
* SMITH : BAKER : WATSON : SOUTHGATE *
* ...and many others *
* Genealogy Web Page: http://web2.airmail.net/dwidener/ *

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