The Rationale Behind Genealogy Research

In this note I explore the reasons and motivations making people around the world engage in family research. To genealogy enthusiasts this may seem like an odd question to ask, but it might not be as self-explanatory. It is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of possible explanations, but rather to demonstrate the diverse contexts in which genealogy-related activities gain relevance and very practical uses.

Evolutionary interest in kinship. This is not a widespread view, but I came to believe that the fundamental reason behind genealogical endeavours is the biological phenomenon known as the kin selection. Put simply, it means that we are wired to be attached to those sharing our genes, as an advantageous evolutionary strategy. It can explain the emotional and somewhat sentimental attitude towards the people on a family tree, even if we never knew them personally. This in-built interest in kin is universal, but some contexts, described below, can create special attention to genealogy issues.

A quest for identity. Our ancestry defines our social and economic background, cultural environment, certain genetic characteristics etc. Therefore, discovering one's "roots" is tightly related to one's identity. This kind of quest for identity is especially strong in predominantly immigrant societies, where there has been a disruption between generations and, thus, loss of ancestral knowledge. This may, to some degree, explain the extreme popularity of genealogy in the United States and Canada. In 2014, it was rated as the second most popular hobby in the United States. Family history has become part of popular culture, subject of numerous TV shows, multiple online databases and businesses.

Genetic pressure to prevent inbreeding. For very small or nomadic societies it has been crucial to know one's close relatives to avoid genetic degeneration. A good example is Iceland, where a database called “The Book of Icelanders” (“Íslendingabók”) was created, with genealogical data on most of its population since year 874. A similarly strong case for ancestry knowledge can be found in nomadic cultures. Constantly moving people needed to know their ancestry in order to prevent close relatives from inbreeding. For example, the Kazakh tribes were supposed to know at least 7 generations of their ancestors, while the Somalis – at least 10 generations.

Religion promoting connection to ancestors. The best-known example is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which encourages its members to research their ancestry and hold special rituals called baptism for the dead. As a result, the Genealogical Society of Utah, established in 1894, now known as FamilySearch, is by far the largest genealogical organization in the world. Another example of religion promoting connections with ancestors is Confucianism, through the notion of filial piety. No surprise, the Chinese tradition to record family lineages, the so called Jia Pu, is arguably the longest in the world. Chinese genealogy can be traced as far back as 1600s and, usually, even further. Some Polynesian cultures, known for deifying their ancestors, have remarkably long traditions of memorizing and reciting their ancestry.

Entitlement to a title or status. Kinship and family lineages have many legal implications. For example, nobility titles can be inherited, the reason why the longest and most elaborate family trees belong to royal and aristocratic families. Another case, which has become popular recently, is obtaining “citizenship by descent”, i.e. based on the fact of an ancestor's citizenship. Many countries, especially in Europe, practice so-called Jus Sanguinis (“right of blood”). Some of them, including Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Poland, offer their citizenships on the ground of a 3-4th generation of descent which needs to be supported with documents.

Inheritance and other legal implications. This field is known as forensic genealogy. Its most common application is probate research or missing heir search that deals with succession to property by descent from a deceased, dying intestate (without a will). Apart from probate, other areas of forensic genealogy include guardianship cases (next of kin), civil pension, Social Security, veteran benefits, land issues etc. Genealogy can also be employed to prove the right to restitution, i.e. obtaining compensation of land, property, funds for a damage done to one's ancestor or close relative.

Health: assessing the risk of genetically determined medical conditions. Predisposition to many health conditions is considered to be genetic, which makes knowing the medical history of your ancestors an actionable piece of information. According to the Stanford Medicine, some diseases are genetic, but have a behavioral component, giving a good chance to preventive health care. Here both classical genealogy and DNA genealogy can be used. The former can help with documents, like studying obituaries or death records, while the latter can go beyond recorded health history. Some DNA genealogy companies offer so called “Genetic Health Risk Reports”. This one is a promising application of genealogy in the near future.

Remembrance: dealing with traumatic events. Genealogy can be a way to come to terms with the past. This is observed in the countries where a large part of population went through traumatic events. Holocaust provoked a wave of interest to genealogy. Today Jewish genealogy is one of the most developed in terms of institutions and resources. In Israel, genealogy is a big part of school education: children have assignments to make a family tree with at least 4 generations of their ancestors. Similarly, in the ex-Soviet countries the descendants of the GULAG prisoners, victims of Stalinist repressions seek genealogical data for some sort of rehabilitation, restoring the reputation of their ancestors. This resulted in an explosive number of databases and other resources for tracing the victims of the Soviet terror.

Psychotherapy: dealing with transgenerational patterns. The transgenerational approach in psychology is based on the idea that patterns of behavior can be transmitted across generations. The phenomenon of transgenerational trauma was was found in the Holocaust survivor's families in which psychological problems were discovered even in the generation that was born long after the war. This approach in psychotherapy and in family therapy to treat patients though analyzing their family trees (called in this context “geneograms” or “genosociograms”).

Cognitive: understanding humans. Last, but by no means least, genealogy is a powerful tool for human science. It can be viewed as a case of microhistory, to understand history through the lenses of individuals, rather than empires and states. As it is rightly noted in this blog post, genealogy gives a more “human” perspective on the pace of time. From genealogical research we can learn about living conditions, social norms and relationships, demographic and migration patterns etc. A great example is the most recent “big news” in the genealogical community – a research project of quantitative analysis on a 13-million people family tree. The researchers have used vast genealogical data from a popular web service to extract demographic data and came to interesting conclusions on familial dispersion and longevity.


As we can see, genealogy is based on powerful human instincts and has a multitude of applications. There are many depths to it that make it a fascinating field to work in.


If you have any ideas or other feedback on the reasons and motivations for genealogy research, please, leave a comment below.