Having a family tree that preserves the history of your family can impact the lives of future generations. A person who does not know the family’s history, culture, and origin is like a tree without roots.
Sri. K. V. Athinatha Iyengar has done the same thing; he has given years of his family to find family roots and record the information for posterity. He talked with several elders in the village t gather the data of each generation. Many of us do not understand the importance of a family tree. Before we go further, let us explain what a family tree is?
What is a Family Tree?
A family tree is the visual representation of one’s ancestry. Have you seen any family char that includes a box? Then you have noticed that this box is connected to another box which indicates the relationship. A package can contain different information such as name, birthplace, dates, etc. What type of information it includes depends on the complexity of one’s family tree diagram.
Generally, we represent a generation on a single level; that makes it easy to understand which generation we are looking at. Normally, the generation above represents the ancestors. If you see a horizontal line between two boxes, then it means marriage. After that, a bracket from a couple to lower boxes represents the children from the marriage. Usually, we see vertical family trees. However, there are some sideways, as well.
Why Someone Needs A Family Tree?
I think that you will have an understanding of the family tree. But why somebody needs to make a family tree? As you know that we celebrate the month of October as National Family History Month in the United States. There are various perks of recording, sharing, and preserving our family history. It can provide useful information about our ancestry. These are not just charts but the history about what were they and what were the values. It can be a great antidote for those who are facing problems in their life. Furthermore, it can better understand who we are and what we can do to motivate our future generations.
Identity
If you don’t know what you are really are, then the family tree can help you know your cultural background. It can provide a strong sense of who you really are. By knowing the family stories, you can make your own narratives about your life. These narratives will help you work on your core identity.
Connection
It is a fact that we humans like to make relationships. I mean, we can’t live alone in this world. The relations we form with other people are durable, and such is the case with past relationships. As more information you will gather about your ancestors, the more you will feel connected to them. Moreover, you will be able to record your own history, which will provide you an opportunity to connect with future generations.
Compassion
Learning more about your ancestors will help you gain an understanding of what they have faced in life. These stories will inspire you and will help you learn from their mistake. Everyone faces problems in their life, but courage is what helps them find a solution. Furthermore, these things will help you make a better spouse, children, manager, sibling, and human being.
Resilience
We talked about the problems that we face in our life. It is important to build resilience to be able to live a happy life. You can learn a lot from your ancestors’ lives. You can see that there is a pattern of failures and survival. These stories will also tell you that life is not easy, you will face disappointments, inequality, but the best thing is that you can recover and triumph.
A recent study published in New York Times shows that knowing the history of the family build resilience in the children. It also helps them learn self-control, which will really help them succeed in life.
SRI. K. V. Athinatha
SRI. K. V. Anthinatha was born in 1902; in his younger age, he was interested in recording the information of his ancestors for prosperity. For this, he has gone to his village and talk with various elders to gather data of each generation. Until his death in 1996 at the age of 94, he continued his efforts to organize the data. You can find his family tree at https://kizhanathamfamilytree.com/. He worked hard in his whole life to gather the information, but it was not really possible to record this data as the only tool he had was a portable typewriter. Thanks to his efforts, now his family is able to share the history of their ancestors. We often see such devotion in people, but now due to his hard work, the family has proudly shared their family tree of twelve generations that stretches back to the 1760s.
