Genealogy

Genealogy is actually something of a sticky subject. There are several ways to investigate genealogy, but accuracy is always questionable. To have any kind of accuracy when researching your genealogy, you have to have primary evidence. Things like first hand accounts of your ancestors that your living relative have met and known, copies of birth, marriage or death certificates, obituaries, or sometimes grave markers. However, getting your hands on this kind of evidence is time consuming and potentially expensive.

Besides first hand accounts there is also the potential for second hand evidence. This could be from biographies that list a primary source, or maybe research that someone else has done that overlaps your own. Second hand evidence can really help flesh out your family tree. You will probably have to gather the first few generations of research yourself, unless you are lucky enough to have a close relative who also has the genealogy bug, but for every generation you go back, you are more likely to find someone who has already done some of the research for you. Because of the near geometric growth of descendants, each generation back potentially increases the number of living descendants for any specific ancestor, increasing the chance that someone out there has already done some of your work for you. God bless those few genealogists out there who actually document their work who you can double check on, but even with a hint of accuracy, it's so much easier to do your own research.

There's actually a genealogical theory that if a person's lineage continues long enough, that person will eventually be the common ancestor of every person alive. Now I know that there are always isolated communities, and that you can't apply a generality to every individual case, but as a generality this theory works really well. What it means for genealogical research is that the farther back you go in your own family tree, if there's information to research, the chances that someone's already done it skyrocket. This theory also means that if you have kids, and your kids have kids, and they have kids that have kids that you will eventually be the progenitor of every human alive.