I've just bought some books for my grand-children
by the author Zeno Sworder in one fo the books
he made the statement ;

"" We sail through life on a carpet woven from
the love and wisdom of your ancestors."

He goes on to say how he benefited greatly from such
a carpet.

" Human beings desire attachment, belonging, and connections.
The relationships we form with other people can be incredibly
durable, not only with people in our present, but also with
people in our past and future. The more we discover about
our past the greater a connection we feel to our ancestors.

As we read our own history, we open the opportunity for
future generations to connect with us when we are gone."

There's more at the following:

http://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/why-we-need-family-history-now-more-than-ever#

Your thoughts please.

My view is that we've become a disconnected society, with people having 'friends' online and no real connections where they live. I know I started sharing veggies with neighbours to try to create a sense of community that just was not there. While I am happy to see this nation become more secular, I think a local church that everyone local attended created a sense of community we now lack. An awareness of family history to me ties into that, where family also represents local roots.

On the other side, white supremacists love to talk about the important of 'ancestry and blood' so any discussion about these sort of things needs to be aware it will draw those sort of types.

Some ancestral facts, Commoners have more ancestors than do Royalty.
There are less people in the world today than there were 1,000 years ago, each one of us has roughly 500,000,000 ancestral positions 30 generations ago so there must be fewer people today or else most of us are related.
I have a couple of double cousins, that is we have exactly the same grand parents as if we were brothers and sisters, this comes about when brothers marry sisters etc.

II have an extensive family tree Emperors and Empresses, Kings and Queens, Dukes and Duchesse and so on down the line, Saints and Scholars, knaves galore, Regicides, fratricides and matricides and just ordinary murderers.
Sworn enemies whose grandchildren married (usually to end the fighting)

It’s a fascinating subject and to be able to trace fairly easily is a great bonus, in my own case a. Scots ancestor who was a wealthy farmer married one of the numerous daughters of an impoverished Scottish nobleman thus gaining an impressive family tree for his descendants, .

Dear Foxy,

"Human beings desire attachment, belonging, and connections"

Yes they do, that is part of their genetic survival strategy, that is also why they feel a connection with their ancestors.

But what has this to do with "our ancestors" as the title sugggest? only our perishable bodies have ancestors, we don't have any!

I used to ask my parents about our ancestors.
They both are not longer with us and I
didn't manage to get all that much information from
them. I've since started a search on MyHeritage I am
having some success.

In our family through inter-marriages we have Lithuanians,
Russians, Ukrainians, English, Scottish, and German.

So we're a mixed bunch. And who knows who our grand-children
will marry?

I started this discussion with the hope of learning something
about the various people that make up this vast land of ours.
Learning something about each other. People travel to different
countries to enrich their lives - so why not start at home?

I'm hoping that enough people will respond to make this discussion
interesting for everyone.

I have so many funny stories to tell about the first experiences
of my parents in this country. Their encounters compliment
Nino Cullotta's book "They're a weird mob," quite well.

On the other side of the coin - my parents and
grand-parents travelled through war-torn zones
to give their families and future children a
free future. However, for me growing up was not
easy. It took a long time as a child to deal with
the fact that one's family was different.