What We Gain by Knowing Our Family Tree
To know, treasure and share our family histories can provide several benefits to each of us as individuals, families, and the larger society. Family history goes past names and birth dates and censuses ?it can be an effective remedy for unfortunate life experiences that we go through today, boosting our understanding of our being and driving us to further cultivate our roots for upcoming generations.
Who We Are
Knowledge of our cultural beginnings and ancestry can help us form a firm awareness of who we really are. How we feel part of our family’s story and make our own accounts of ourselves helps establish our unique character.
Connection
Having relationships with our family – then, now and tomorrow – can feed an innate desire in us. Human beings want attachment and belonging. The more we uncover about our ancestors, the stronger we feel connected to them. As we carve our own history, we provide future generations a way to trace their ties with us after we have left.
Compassion
Studying our forefathers’ history makes us understand their challenges in their time, and this can make us love them and have compassion for them even more for their weaknesses. This can readily manifest in how we deal with our living family. We all face difficulties in life. Remembering this in the context of other people’s flaws simply makes us better human beings.
Resilience
To know our family roots is to establish resilience. In going over the lives of our ancestors, we can spot cycles of rising above failures and tough times. Their lives remind us that life will not always be as simple as we want, that disappointments and oppression exist, but that we can weather them through and find happiness notwithstanding the hardships.
Self-Worth
Our family history and relationships make us stronger. Diving deep into our own family histories, significant as well as larger-scale events will be revealed to us. Thinking about the immensity of mankind as we read about the Lord’s hand in our ancestors’ lives, tells us of His true love for all of us on a personal level. In His supreme eyes, we are of great value. His love and knowledge of us is beyond measure and transcends time.
Indeed, our family tree is beyond a collection of names and birthdates and all. It’s about everything that builds the persons we are. It’s about people to whom we feel strongly attached. People who suffered yet emerged victorious. It’s the whole of all of us. If not for our family history, we would not even be here – literally.