WHY RESEARCH FAMILY HISTORY?

Inevitably, at some time in the future, we will all be DNA tagged and required to show a 'pedigree' before applying for a job or a license to breed. Don't laugh, it's coming! Your family history is going to become as important or more so than academic qualifications, and don't worry about the apes and the black sheep -- every family has a few them. It's the length and breadth of your of lineage that counts.

By 'breadth', this means knowing more than the paternal lineage of your mother and father. You need to know their maternal lineage, too. Maternal lineage is particularly important for genetics because because mitochondrial DNA passes from mothers to sons and daughters but only daughters pass it on throughout the generations.

We all know our parents' brothers and sisters and their children, and many of us know our paternal grandfather's brothers and sisters and their children -- because they share our surname -- but how many us know anything about our grandmothers' families?

For medical reasons alone, it is unacceptable that half of our genetic makeup has been ignored in family histories -- and particularly so when DNA studies show that our paternal ancestors may not be our ancestors at all!

Even if you don't want to delve deeper into your family history -- examining all of the individual records -- then at least talk to your grandparents while they are still alive and talk to your children about all of their ancestors because there will come a day when they will need this information.