Genealogy Essay Example

What I know about Genealogy

Genealogy is the study involved with establishing details about a family. Simply put it is the study of family history, paying attention to details about preceding members and their history. Several methods are used to gather information in Genealogy such as studying historical records that have been recorded about the family with time, use of oral interviews whereby an interviewee asks questions to correspondents who may have information about the family. Genetic analysis is also used to unearth details about the family in question.

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Different people have different intentions when carrying out a genealogy study. The individual may have the intention of knowing their position in their family while others out of a feeling of responsibility will want to want to carry out a genealogy study so that they are in a position to organize and preserve their family's history.

Genealogists may fall into the category of amateur or professionals. While Amateur genealogists have an aim to typically pursue only their family's ancestry and perhaps that of their spouses, the professional genealogists conduct deeper and detailed genealogy studies and go out of their way to research families, not necessarily their own. These professional genealogists usually publish books, websites and other publications on genealogical methods and genealogy in genealogy in general. Some of the professionals also teach genealogy as a course in higher learning institutions while others go to the extent of producing their databases. Genealogists may also work in the production of genealogical software and other materials that are used by genealogy professionals.

The most distinct similarity between the amateur and professional genealogists is that both aim at establishing a family's history by looking at where the members of that particular family lived when they lived, their lifestyles, what motivated their way of life and style of doing things and also their biographies among other family features.

Genealogy originated in the western societies whereby scholars used to study the Kinship and descent of people considered as nobles and rulers. The aim of the studies was to demonstrate the legitimacy of claims to power and wealth of the individual in question. Some family trees have been maintained for quite a long time such as the family of Confucius that has been maintained for more than 2500 years. The family has entered in the Guinness book of world records as the largest extant family tree. The family's genealogy is published.

Currently, genealogy has become the norm whereby a lot of people are becoming increasingly involved in studying and maintaining their family trees. This has been made much easier with the advent of the internet which has made the number of resources readily available to people who would want to carry out a genealogy study increase by the day. This has sparked a lot of interest in genealogy.

What information is needed to find out about ancestors and where to look for it?

The necessary websites; a good genealogy website can be a breakthrough in finding out information about ones' ancestors. Great websites go a step further in providing information by providing different perspectives and approaches in studying the family tree and be a major boost in overcoming a lot of brick walls that are likely to be countered in such an initiative. There are non-genealogy websites that can be of great help too as they have tools and resources that when used creatively can be a significant step in studying a family tree. The websites include; Name Check that helps to check over 75 popular social sites for any name that a client wants to be checked. Free OCR, a website that converts any user-supplied image into the equivalent text, because it is possible to convert an image to readable using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The babynamewizard.com, as the name, suggests it is designed to aid parents in choosing a name for their newborn kids. OpenWith.Org, a website which enables people to recognize old software files and also provides software to help open old software files. TinEye, which is a reverse search engine that deals with images only. Here, the researcher submits an image to TinEye, and the website informs the researcher whether there is a replica image anywhere on the internet.

Other than the use of websites to get information on ancestors, a set of software has been developed that is of great help in exploring a family's family tree. Various genealogy professional has developed tutorials that people can use in finding out information about their ancestors. Currently, use of this software is becoming a norm due to the convenience offered by the internet, compared to the clumsiness of researching in books and older publications. Such software includes; the family tree maker, the family tree marker for Mac and the Reunion. Genealogy software for windows includes Roots Magic 7, the family historian, the family tree marker 2014, the legacy family tree and the Master Genealogist.

Apart from the use of websites and software in establishing information about the ancestors, one can also study several books that offer genealogical information. The books can be quite instrumental in studying family trees. Currently, the books that have been rated as quite helpful in the genealogical study include; How to do everything Genealogy, The Complete Idiot's guide to genealogy the second edition, the family tree problem solver: Tried and true tactics for tracing elusive ancestors and you can write your family history.

However genealogical books, software, and websites can provide a lot of information on our ancestors, it is essential that an individual looking for information on their ancestors appreciate that not all information about our ancestors is available online or in books. It is commendable that the researcher talks to close relatives about the search to find out how much the realities know about their ancestors, which can be very helpful. Studying where the ancestors lived by visiting those places can also prove to be very helpful as one is likely to establish more information about them.

The other part in searching for information on ancestors is getting a DNA test. This decision always proves to be quite crucial in establishing knowledge about the ancestors, as the researcher can establish some finer details about their ancestry that may not be available in books or on the internet.

Why it is vital for an individual to know their family History?

The most valid reason as to why a person should find out their family's medical history is that usually, family members have many common characteristics. Such fealties include; genes, response to surrounding environment as well as lifestyles. These factors can give clues about a person's medical condition by establishing patterns of medical conditions and disorders that have at different times in history engulfed that family. Establishing these patterns helps health professionals to establish whether any medical conditions run in the family. They can also determine whether other family members or their future generations are at the risk of developing certain medical conditions.

Establishing a family history is a critical move towards understanding an individual's medical condition and also finding out whether that particular person stands the risk of developing medical conditions such as the heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and other lifestyle-related ailments.

Knowing the family medical history is also crucial in that it helps in determining the type of screening and which tests are necessary for an individual. The tests and screening are crucial because realizing a disease early enough goes a long way in helping to treat the disease.

Establishing a family's medical history is also important knowing the kind of lifestyle and lifestyle-related behaviors that the individual should adopt.

If a Family Member is Sick, How likely is that person to have a disease that was passed down from their generation?

The likelihood that a family member's medical condition was passed down from a previous generation highly depends on whether the disease is chronic or not. Chronic diseases are more likely to be passed from one generation to the next in a family lineage. For instance, it is widely believed that if one person develops a chronic disease such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease, most likely there was a person of the older generation in that person's family lineage that had cancer. It is also believed that this occurrence will most likely recur in future whereby a person or more persons in that generation of the following ones will develop that disease.

This means that if a family member is sick, their condition could have originated from their previous generations only if the disease is chronic and most likely is in that family's genetic order.