The Power of Names

We're looking at a bit of genealogy as an interesting angle to a history project my youngest is working on. I don't take genealogy that seriously although it's really big business in much of the US I think. Still, it's kind of fun.

We've got one of his ancestral lines traced back to 1610 (yeah, England, and in 1635 got on a boat to what would later be the USA). This was the 12th previous generation for. Meaning that this pilgrim was one of approximately 4096 of his Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents. Yes, a direct descendent of up to 4096 ancestors of that generation. Might be less because at some point "inbreeding" is inevitable. Otherwise he would have over 68 billion ancestors even prior to rolling the family history all the way back to BC.

Even back to only 1610, there are thus (we'll assume) 4096 distinct paths my little guy can trace up to an ancestor. Each one just as big an impact on how he got here as any other. That's a lot of research. Even more importantly, it becomes impossible to explain that in any kind of cohesive narrative. It's natural to want to tease out a narrative, or a manageable set of narratives, for how you got here.

In comes the power of names. They carry more weight than they should, because they give us some context -- a defined thread to hang a narrative off of. Most people I think wander a few generations up a full tree then research single-name threads much beyond that. (Carried by the men in our cultures. An unfortunate side-effect as you get farther back in time is the bias that the women were kind of bystanders to history, that the family was propelled forward by the men, an artifact of chasing a male-based naming convention backwards up the tree.)

One of his Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents was a Fooshe. But he won't naturally think of himself as a Fooshe even though she contributed as much to his arrival as did her husband (via whom the name was transmitted) or any of the 126 other ancestors of that generation. Again, that seems perfectly natural as I can't hold thousands of narratives together in my head. I have to pick a few to follow and craft stories out of.

Now if I only had a comprehensive set of information at my fingertips for every single one of the ancestors going back 12 or 20 generations, that would be a cool thing to browse, given a good navigational tool. Trying to assemble that manually would be quite an effort. This is where genealogy enthusiasts really help. Just wait, and my 10 million closest distant cousins will mostly fill out the tree for me.