I started this to not derail the other thread that is very interesting but I've always wondered why we are so attached to our past ancestors. To me there is the simple understanding that they provide us with belonging and identity but my question is a little deeper.

It seems that every generation is worried or believes that they haven't lived up to to the expectations of their ancestors. I personally find that silly because if that is the case, every generation is a disappointment and therefore falling short. It's more likely that we're projecting our own inadequacies and we use some sort of fabricated expectations to measure ourselves by. Secondly, our ancestors don't live in the world we live in and therefore don't deal with the same challenges or have the same knowledge we have.

Lastly, I wonder if I would like my ancestors or if they would like me. I'm the first college graduate in one side of the family and I figure my ancestors probably wouldn't like the type of life I live.

I was once camping and started a fire using a Fire Starter log and someone asked me what my ancestors would say if they saw me doing that. "That's pretty neat. Where can I get one?"

That is pretty cool. I find any guilt for any of our ancestor's behavior is bizarre to me. I only have guilt regarding my decisions, so I just can't comprehend anyone that feels guilty for other's actions.

Does that mean then that we shouldn't feel pride for their achievements? Sorry, this is an esoteric conversation.

Starred you for not just a very good post, but also for using "baker's dozen" to mean 13. Excellent!

My own fascination with my ancestors, at least in the last eight years, is driven by a very keen awareness of the extent to which choices made by my ancestors, quite literally 120 years ago, have profoundly defined my present circumstances and opportunities. In the other thread, I talked about an Italian (great-great-grandfather), who in 1905 put my family into the new world by a simple piece of intransigence.

His son left a hidden passage to the old world that, after some considerable effort, I have found and crossed with my family. There is something to be said for the value of the non-monetary inheritance that I am reclaiming by this effort.

Over the longer term, my fascination with my ancestors has been driven by the extent to which the personal parts of my family's history were severed by short lifespans (and long distances). My paternal grandfather was dead for a decade before I was born. I was in first grade when my maternal grandfather died. Growing up without them, I always felt bereft of a context that should have been mine.

My paternal grandfather's rolltop desk sits in my office. I often wonder who he was. I know that he bought the desk in the 1930s, for $3 (silver). I know that he was frugal. In '39, he married and paid cash for a house. He sent my grandmother downtown to buy the dining room table where my children ate breakfast this morning.

I've spent a good portion of my adult life on the quest for the contextual stories that explain the arrangement of pieces on the chessboard of my own life.

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On a somewhat related note, I deal with Europeans for a significant amount of my professional life. I am always fascinated by the very subtle distinctions of class, most of which are inherited, that they observe.

I have not done any comparisons of my achievements vs my ancestors, it is a fool's errand given differences in the time periods involved, opportunities, circumstances.

I do find it interesting to know about their lives, where they lived, where they moved to, and all that. Later in life, I wanted to go to places where I know they were. I know where my dad came ashore on Tarawa and where he killed the first Japanese he killed. I traveled there twice and have walked up the same beach he did. Still want to go to Saipan and Tinian. I visited the Meuse-Argonne where his dad, my grandfather, fought and was gassed.

Have visited Vicksburg, my wife's GG grandfather or GGG grandfather (forget which), was mayor during the siege. My current mission is to gather information where my ancestors and my wife's ancestors fought in the Civil War and go to all those places.

I have ancestors that were in James Town according to my tree, I don't think it is far fetched to say most of us who have confederate ancestors and by extension ancestors who came from England to settle in the southern colonies likely descend from James town settlers.

But we sure aren't Pilgrims/Puritans (at least most of us)

We are the result of our ancestors actions, and how they decided to leave their old lands to come here is very interesting to me, and plays a big part of the lives we live today (of course 300 years ago most of our ancestors were not living in Texas)

Now that Texas is changing I always wonder what my ancestors would do in this situation. Would they stay? Would they leave west? Would they go back to the east where their families had lived, now that reconstruction is over (or whatever caused them to leave for Texas after the CW?)

It might sound silly to some, but that is how I have always thought.