Most of the women on my matrilineal side share the hobby of doing extensive research in family history. Like tracing the family tree back to the 1500s level. It’s kinda cool being able to have a cohesive story of where my family has been and what they’ve done or been through. It still seems kinda….feudal adjacent in a sense.

Idk my lefty self-crit sense is tingling. What’s the line on this? Obviously there is a great deal of white privilege in even being able to, but often enough privilege seems to be something everyone should have rather than nobody having it. Thoughts?

  • Barabas [he/him]
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    2 years ago

    Nothing wrong with it, just a hobby thing. As long as you're not desperately trying to become an aristocrat and make it your entire personality.

    Remeber my family doing a check on lineage and there was not a single "interesting" person in there, and they were all within 50km of eachother for as long back as they could find records (16th century). The most interesting one was a guy who got jailed for desertion, the rest were just farm hands, maids and miners. Coming from a long line of unremarkable peasants is oddly comforting.

  • KiaKaha [he/him]
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    2 years ago

    Nah knowing history’s fine and cool.

    Capitalism atomises us, separating us from our past and present. Reconnecting with history allows us to contextualise ourselves, and connect with a narrative beyond the present instance.

    The problematic angle only comes in if you try to use that history to legitimise or recreate a reactionary state of affairs.

  • kristina [she/her]
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    2 years ago

    tbf idk how much white privilege pulls into it. its more of a 'you werent descended a black slave' privilege. almost everywhere had extensive genealogy records from 1500 onwards. china was even better at it.

    personally i dug really far into our lineage to try to find our oldest female ancestor because at one point surnames were based on the mother only but there was a shift in feudalism towards male names. idea was to go back to passing along the name from the women's line but alas i was just a couple generations off from being able to do it. ran out of records by around 1100

    honestly its so dumb that last names are passed by men. like a woman can go cheat but youll always know she got pregnant and had the kid so it makes sense for the woman to pass the name on. whereas a guy can go cheat and youll have tons of mystery kids

    also, gotta say, its a HUGE pain in the ass to dig through history because of this. if everyone passed on the woman's name it would make the whole process so easy, because sometimes you would have a bastard show up in your line and then you gotta really dig to see where the fuck they came from and from who. its a bit easier if you only care about the women because they are the constant, however it is very difficult to figure out who a woman with a bastard's parents are because it usually isnt listed because they see the woman as expendable at this point

      • kristina [she/her]
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        2 years ago

        thats more of a 23 and me thing, you can find records via contacting the governments of various countries. czechia for instance has a national archive that is pretty easily accessible and has a fuckton of records dating back centuries. like a lot of it is in german and latin because we got colonized, and they even included records from gravestones in the archives too

      • kristina [she/her]
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        2 years ago

        im aware that its a power play but it doesnt make it any less stupid

    • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
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      2 years ago

      Passing down the father's name is exactly why patriarchal society has out so much effort into controlling women's lives.

      • star_wraith [he/him]
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        2 years ago

        There's a not insignificant number of guys out there who want a son primarily to pass on their last name...

  • reaper_cushions [he/him, comrade/them]
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    2 years ago

    Eh, the fact that my dad is from a royal family (before the soviets came and rightfully expropriated them) let’s me trace my lineage really far down and that’s a good thing in my opinion. As long as you’re critical about your ancestors actions and beliefs, simply knowing about them and researching them does no harm and is fairly enjoyable.

  • YuccaMan [he/him]
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    2 years ago

    Some distant relative of mine did a fairly extensive genealogical study of our family, going back to our arrival in the Americas with Winthrop, and even going back to pre-Norman England. If the work is valid (and part of me is skeptical), we're apparently descended from the old Anglo-Saxon nobility of Mercia. Kings and earls and knights and the like.

    None of that changes the fact that I'm a late twenties schlub making shit money in a warehouse outlet, trying to get through college and get out of a ramshackle apartment. Genealogy can be interesting, and I believe it's a good thing to know your family's story, but it's ridiculous when people make it their personality or use it to big themselves up. I mean, plainly I'm not any kind of aristocrat now, am I?

    • eduardog3000 [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      If the work is valid (and part of me is skeptical), we’re apparently descended from the old Anglo-Saxon nobility of Mercia.

      Almost all Western Europeans likely are, just like they're all descended from Charlemagne. The work just shows how you're descended from them. And of course going that far back is always iffy.

      • YuccaMan [he/him]
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        2 years ago

        My thoughts exactly. Which is why I don't see it as anything more than a cool little bit of trivia to drop when people ask me questions about myself and my family.

  • Chapo_is_Red [he/him]
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    2 years ago

    In itself it's fine, but many people are reactionary about it. It's better than DNA test cuz it takes some effort on the person's part, but it can lead to similar problematic stuff.

    Even when it's fine though, it can be annoying. Like having a one sided conversation with a super nerd about comic book characters.

  • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
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    2 years ago

    no but your obliged to end your family line when it turns out your distantly related to the english royal line :very-smart:

    • eduardog3000 [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      A 4th great grandparent of mine was a confederate soldier, I assume that's also good enough reason to end by bloodline.

    • GriddlePill [none/use name]
      hexagon
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      2 years ago

      Yeah I’m still mad my sibling did that 23 and me shit. The history stuff was like going through birth records and marriage certificates among other things.

    • eduardog3000 [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      Genealogy isn't the same as those DNA tests. They can be used to aid genealogy, but they're definitely not necessary for it.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
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      2 years ago

      If you’re white you probably don’t even need to do one yourself. Ask around in your family an chances are someone already did one

      is this a subtle jab at white people for being quick to hand over their genetic info to multinational companies?

  • Vampire [any]
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    2 years ago

    It's the bedrock of pre-capitalist tribal societies, indigenous ones.

  • Nixon [she/her]
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    2 years ago

    my family is obsessed with genealogy and they love their genocidal settler ancestors

    my mom got pissed at me once because I told her that being proud of our ancestors amounted to celebrating mass infanticide