I would love for there to be a website devoted to mapping the entire family tree of every living person as far back as we have records to allow us to go. Something of that sort has been on my mind for a long time. If it existed I’d even be willing to help work on the thing.
Granted there are those who would view it as some big evil Orwellian database that tries to keep track of us all and would be against it. But I prefer to think that it might remind us all that we’re all one big family and should totally get along more.
Is there something that happened recently that made you think this, Pat?
I’ve thought it before. My father used to be very interested in genealogy, and I find it fascinating too. He traced our family back quite a ways, but I’ve thought, same as you, that I’d love to have tit stretching back to, like, Roman Britain. Who was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-(etc.)grandfather at the time of Caesar, and what did he do, and all that?
And yes, it’s amazing to learn how closely related a lot of us actually are without even knowing it.
I suppose the fact I had a National Genographic DNA test done last year helped raise my interest in the subject, but really I’ve always been kinda interested in it. My mother has a bit of a family tree being worked on every now and then, but a single database with all the information anyone has would be astounding.