Have you asked yourself what potential you have with your skills and abilities? Or what common illnesses you are genetically susceptible to? Genealogy can help you understand yourself and help you see the history of your lineage.
Genealogy is the tracing of family pedigrees. It involves connecting names of biological relatives on a family tree. Biology tells us that our genes, heredity’s basic unit, can transfer certain traits down many generations.
Many people are prone to certain illness because their genes carry the characteristics of the illness. Let’s take the case of schizophrenia, a form of mental illness. Studies have shown that people with close relatives having the illness, their chances of getting the illness is higher than those who don’t have. Some unverified studies have claimed that they found patterns in the occurrence of schizophrenia. The illness occurs in genetically prone families every other generation. There are many documented cases of living relatives having mental illness despite the fact that schizophrenia only occurs in 1 percent of the population.
Genealogy is not a means of scaring a person about illnesses. In fact, knowledge of genetic ancestral backgrounds is very useful in forewarning families about their predispositions to certain illness so they can make necessary actions to divert or minimize the effects.
On the brighter side, genealogy can also help people realize their full potentials in terms of skills, talents and abilities. We have heard of the expression “like father like son”. Many great artists and thinkers have impressive ancestors. But there are also people who are related but very different from each other. While it is a fact that some traits get subdued as they pass through many generation, perhaps another explanation could be that they were not able to realize their potential due to lack of knowledge. Psychologists and human behavior specialists have noted that human development is both nature and nurture.
Genealogy in these modern times has become very easy with the use of information technology. Many softwares like GRAMPS, SmartGenealogy, RootsMagic, LifeLines and Family Tree Maker can take data and produce family tree outputs in seconds.
GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication), a specification for genealogical data developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can help information sharing of genealogical data by converting data into text format portable in different genealogical softwares.
On the internet, several websites offer genealogy services like social networking websites. Anybody can post his family tree for other relatives to add names on the nodes. As word about the family tree spreads around the millions of internet users, at least a few hundred relatives could drop by and add names to the tree. The tree can grow substantially, giving information about the family. Information that can be derived includes countries of origin from different generations, migration patterns, important events during a particular era, common skills and talents among the relatives and many more.
Genealogy has made the lives of many people more meaningful. Many people who have been disconnected by time, distance and generation are reconnecting again.
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Do you want to know exactly who your ancestors were: where they lived; what they did for a living; whether that story of highwaymen, criminals and corrupt relatives is factual, or a figment of Grandma's over-active imagination? |
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