Six perspectives on Ancestry

In many cultures rather than saying a person has died, a person is described as having become an ancestor. When we meet with our own mortality we might begin to think about the place we occupy amongst those who have gone before and those who are yet to come.

Yet in the relatively rare conversations we have about ancestors, it feels like the word is full of part-understandings. It seems that when we talk about ancestors, we could be having any number of conversations.

The genealogical ancestor

This might be the obvious starting point in Western culture today. The blood relatives that we are descended from. We might inherit rich family stories, told regularly, maybe written down, or perhaps a space full of questions.

With the rise of the internet in recent decades, researching family trees has become so much more accessible. The wealth of digitised records available, plus DNA sampling, can offer snippets of stories from ancestors and a map of the places that our ancestors called home. Programmes like the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are and websites like ancestry.com are mainstream. An entry point into discovering those who came before us.

Our lives increasingly grow outwards from places that multiple generations called home: children leave home and perhaps establish lives far away. When the earth under our feet can't move with us, perhaps knowing the stories of our ancestors becomes the soil for our roots.

The unwelcome ancestor

We share a genetic bond with our genealogical ancestors, and develop and grow through emotional relationships with them. Relationships are always complex and are a lifelong effort of love and learning. It has to be recognised that they don't always go well.

Talking about ancestors can be really difficult if you have experienced neglect or abuse from a family member. If you have a worldview in which ancestors might have an ongoing role to play in life after death, the thought of ancestors can become very disturbing. Many spiritualities and worldviews have offerings for making sense of these situations, but often the expectations that people are missed and pressure not to speak ill of the dead dominate. Working concerns through with a counsellor or therapist can be invaluable.

The removed, lost or forgotten ancestor

For many, the names and stories of those who have gone before them are not available. People who have been adopted, persecuted or enslaved can feel as though their branch of the family tree has been severed. Either deliberately or because their ancestor's names and stories were deemed shameful, or not worthy of being remembered.

This absence of genealogical ancestry can bring with it a deep grief, and a reminder that comprehensive genealogical histories have often been one of the privileges of power.

For descendants of enslaved people, projects such as Reparative Genealogy and Last Seen are recognising the healing power of acknowledging the loss and recovering what information might be available.

For those with ancestors who owned slaves, there might also be the work of repair to be done.

The more-than-blood ancestor

If we take the Latin definition of ancestor as 'one who goes before', we find a much richer possible understanding of ancestry. If your genealogical ancestry is problematic or missing, or if you do not have children, you are not excluded from participation in ancestry.

The more-than-blood ancestor might be an adoptive parent or guardian. They could equally be a teacher, mentor, coach or hero. They might be people you never met, or people who are still alive. They might be a specific individual, or perhaps the broad sense of all the people who have ever lived on the land you now call home. Perhaps they are even a character in a story.

If a person or people have given you a gift that you treasure, that has directed the growth of your life, then perhaps that person who has gone before is as much an ancestor to you as a distant, un-known relative.

The spiritual ancestor

Many cultures and worldviews have very active roles for ancestors. The use of the word ancestor, especially when followed by 'worship', can make this feel quite other at first. But whilst the words might be different, there are many socially common ways that those who have gone before might still be around.

Think perhaps of the language used around loved ones as angels, of talking to the ancestor we find helpful, or cursing them in moments of frustration or despair. Some keep chairs empty for them, make them meals, talk about them as if they were still living. Stories might be repeated at family occasions, or photos shown. The choices, roles, work and adventures or our ancestors might make up a part of our identity, for better or for worse.

Whatever words we use around ancestry and spirituality, there is often an ongoing relationship for the living.

The yet-to-be ancestor

Which brings us to you, me, us. The ancestors who are yet-to-be.

I am deeply grateful to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois) for holding, maintaining and sharing the principle of understanding our role in the world as to think of the seventh generation coming after you in your words, work and actions, and to remember the seventh generation who came before you.

Do we think of ourselves as having a role to play for the seventh generation to come? If we did, what would that role look like for us, personally as individuals?

Within the seventh generation principle is a challenge and an opportunity. If you are like me, the challenge and the opportunity seem far too large to be left to my deathbed moment. Our dying is important, but our living defines the ancestor we become. We have a great deal of say in what our legacy will be, how we will be remembered, the impact we have on the world and the people we know.

Acknowledging that we will become an ancestor, and hopefully an ancestor that we would be proud of, requires facing our own mortality and knowing that one day we will die. Perhaps the opportunity this offers is just enough to mean that the sooner we do that, the better.