Family genealogy is the study of one's ancestors through one's place, time and family history.

It differs from inheritance genealogy in the sense that we are not looking for unknown heirs of a vacant estate but for people who have practised a profession, made life choices for a given period and through historical upheavals.

The family genealogist allows his client, in addition to establishing the filiation of an ancestor or the knowledge of exciting family events, to be able to exercise his civil rights.

When a family name is in the process of extinction, a 'name raising procedure' allows a person who can prove his or her degree of kinship to the last holder of the name, to then take possession of it. The genealogist contributes to these formal legal proceedings by providing witness to the ancestral line.

The family genealogist can also be called upon to delve into civil status records and archives, transcriptions, the history of a property or the biography of an ancestor.

He is obliged to go through the correct and proper genealogical procedures, although there is no guarantee of what result may be found.

Unexpected emotions and even upsetting reactions can occur once stories emerge; a 90-year-old man who is moved and weeps over a military registration of an ancestor he has been looking for all his life, prison registers detailing the reasons for the imprisonment of an ancestor, hidden over several generations, a family denial about the abandonment of a child or a person in their tree... These are all sometimes experienced as trauma.

In this sense, from my perspective there is no activity more 'alive' than genealogy.

It acts as a revealer of links to ones' true self, reactivates anger, sorrow, joy and also revives hope.

Not everyone is ready to welcome these revelations.

Some will choose to repeat their family history while others will opt for reparation and genealogical liberation.

So what do you want to do with that knowledge?

What brings you to Genealica?