Author Topic: Are most people not interested in family trees?  (Read 11874 times)

Offline Intevel

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #18 on: Friday 09 March 18 09:09 GMT (UK) »
Yes I saw that Rosie :)

I don't recall being that sensitive to other people's attitudes in my 30s :-\


Well should I call him my ''sort of friend?''


But the problem is I would get banned if I continued to argue with you because people like you would get sensitive. People are such hypocrites.

You're very unlikely to get banned just for disagreeing with someone on this site! We're (usually) very friendly and welcoming of other people's views. Calling someone a hypocrite isn't very friendly, but I doubt whether it will get you banned.

We all have different approaches to our genealogical searches. Personally, I don't have much interest in getting to know second and third cousins, apart from being able to fit them into the overall picture, and finding out if they have any new information about our joint ancestors.

That's kinda weird to me. You have no interest in getting to know them other than how they fit into the picture. They aren't really people to you, just stats.

To each it's own. But to me that's weird.

Offline JenB

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #19 on: Friday 09 March 18 09:14 GMT (UK) »
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Offline Intevel

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #20 on: Friday 09 March 18 09:21 GMT (UK) »
Why have you started a new thread? http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=789459.msg6451364#msg6451364

To separate the topic? People aren't really answering my question directly.

Offline majm

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #21 on: Friday 09 March 18 10:51 GMT (UK) »
My interest and involvement in family history goes back to my childhood. 

It has never involved me deliberately  searching for LIVING  strangers --- if in my research I came across  any  fellow family history buff who was also researhing same DECEASED person as me then I would share research.

 I would not expect to become involved in their domestic or business lives.

 So when sharing info ...well err ...it NEVER involved providing info about my LIVING relatives nor learning about their LIVING family.  To me, it is not famlly history to choose to seek out living people and encroach on their lives.

JM
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Offline Intevel

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #22 on: Friday 09 March 18 11:07 GMT (UK) »
My interest and involvement in family history goes back to my childhood. 

It has never involved me deliberately  searching for LIVING  strangers --- if in my research I came across  any  fellow family history buff who was also researhing same DECEASED person as me then I would share research.

 I would not expect to become involved in their domestic or business lives.

 So when sharing info ...well err ...it NEVER involved providing info about my LIVING relatives nor learning about their LIVING family.  To me, it is not famlly history to choose to seek out living people and encroach on their lives.

JM


Whatever floats your boat I guess. You're more interested in knowing something about someone than knowing someone.

Offline Kiltpin

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #23 on: Friday 09 March 18 11:28 GMT (UK) »
I cannot speak to anybody else's experiences, but in my experience those who do not wish to know about their family history display all the signs of FEAR. Sometimes, quite irrational.

I had a cousin ask me: "How do you know my address?"

My answer did not seem to dispel any distress they were feeling: "We have been exchanging Christmas cards for the last 30 years."

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Chas
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Offline Gadget

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #24 on: Friday 09 March 18 11:36 GMT (UK) »
About 15 years ago, a cousin and I chased up all the cousins descended from one particular ancestral couple (1st, 2nd, 3rd, unclassified,  removed and unremoved) using a snowball method. We then had a big get together and all got on very well. Some kept in touch, others didn't. I made some very good friends with some of them and we still keep in touch. Just like real life, we aren't friends with everyone because there might not be a sparkle or much in common. 

We could have only done this by researching our ancestors.


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Offline Chilternbirder

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #25 on: Friday 09 March 18 11:50 GMT (UK) »
A second cousin contacted me as we had trees on Ancestry that were clearly based on the same common ancestors two generations back. This was very fruitful and resulted in both an exchange of family photos and anecdotes especially valuable for me as my father had not kept in contact with his extended family. Apart from matters relating directly to the family tree we haven't kept in touch.
Crabb from Laurencekirk / Fordoun and Scurry from mid Essex

Offline Mike in Cumbria

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Re: Are most people not interested in family trees?
« Reply #26 on: Friday 09 March 18 18:05 GMT (UK) »
]

That's kinda weird to me. You have no interest in getting to know them other than how they fit into the picture. They aren't really people to you, just stats.

To each it's own. But to me that's weird.

There you go again. I'm starting to wonder if all this deliberate misinterpretation of what people say is part of an elaborate wind-up.

However - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt just this once and answer your question. No, of course they're not just stats to me, they're real people. They have their own circles of friends and family, I have mine. I'm sure some of them are great people, others may not be so nice. However, they've all lived through the same times and life events that I have. My great great grandparents, and their ancestors, on the other hand, lived very different lives from mine - they lived through times of massive social change, important developments in agriculture and industry, through various wars, lost children to all sorts of diseases, survived Spanish flu - a  whole lot of things that I haven't lived through. I am a direct descendant of these people, and I feel that my life, my whole existence is a continuation of theirs. Of course I find them interesting!  Some sort of second or third cousin, at different degrees of removal, living a parallel life to mine through the second half of the twentieth, and the first two decades of the twenty-first century are much less interesting to me, and I know that works both ways.

Mike