Author Description

Historically, family history research and compiling pedigrees was needed for landed gentry, but is now a popular hobby. Why the sudden interest? This book will look at psychological explanations as to why we are interested in our family tree and our ancestors' pasts. We will look at the psychology of contextualising ourselves, tribal territoriality, kinship, experiencing genealogical voids from separation, the notion of homelands, romanticised heritages, cultural dejavu, race memory, becoming obsessed with searching, and putting all the pieces in our jigsaw. Why do we avidly research distant ancestors that we share so little DNA with, and feel less connection to second cousins? We will discuss the role of gender and culture in devising a tree, and how we develop an apparently seamless narrative based on fragmented information we have gleaned from various sources. Do you like your name? What are the naming patterns in your community? Has social media made us lonely, and we hoard people? How do we feel about death and dying? What do you want on your gravestone? Are we searching for who they were, or who we are?