Obsession with ancestors?

[Sadie]

Obsession with distant ancestors (not your immediate family genealogy)? Do you think it's retarded? I do.

[Liffrea]

Depends what you mean by “obsession”?

I’m interested in my family history, can’t say I get all teary eyed over it I suspect I would dislike many of my forefathers….I dislike large numbers of my living family…..I’m interested in my roots is all, even if some were Irish gypo horse thieves, at least I have a King and a couple of dukes to balance it out…..rather stick with the horse thieves if it’s all the same…

[hajduk]

No
I can trace both sides of my family back over 300 years. My blood is 100% from Bulgaria ( region of Macedonia and Thrace)

[Bloodeagle]

I view all obsessions as weak and retarded!

[Falkata]

I think this obsession is something american, not european. I mean, I know that my ancestors from the last 250 years are from the same region so I dont expect big surprises if I could go further...

[SuuT]

I think that an obsession with one's ancestry would be retarded, yes.

[Albion]

I think this obsession is something american, not european. I mean, I know that my ancestors from the last 250 years are from the same region so I dont expect big surprises if I could go further...

Yeah, the Americans usually seem to make it up as they go along. They all think they've got Irish, German, English and native American ancestry. No matter what American it is they always claim to have Irish ancestry, I guess it must be some sort of obsession (how ironic).

I've only traced mine about 3 generations back so far, none past the 19th century.
There's no problem with tracing your ancestry back far, but so long as you don't gloat about it and don't make it up (ahem, Americans).

[Bard]

Well I'm very intersted, not obsessed.

On my father side they are all from this area (I suspect some inbreed too, many generation from the same village and few people), and I can track back 200 years so I don't care very much.

On my mother side I'm uncertain and curious, they have an Austrian surname but I can track just until my grandmother, and she had 2 surnames one italian, one greek. Pretty strange. By the way my mother is not very interested so I will have to do all by myself.

I think that americans can easily track back their ancestry (immigration records, army, census) while here for example you have to go to the church and hope that some war didn't destroy the records (thanks god the local church owns record back to the 16th century).

[Baron Samedi]

Ancestry means very little.

Carve your own destiny, don't piggyback on your deceased family.

I'm directly related to Andrew Jackson.... Do I care?

No.

[Cail]

I can trace my direct patrilineal ancestry for nearly 800 years, but that's because of noble (Gediminid) origins. I can trace some other lines to the end of XVIIIc., but that's it.