Related commentaries – Genealogy

The Genealogy of The Messiah – Matthew 1:1 – 1:17

The Hobby of Tracing Your Ancestory

Many people take up the hobby of tracing their ancestors because they are curious about where they came from. I once had a secretary who spent a lot of time going to graveyards checking grave stones and looking up the genealogy of her ancestors. It has been said that the average person will not be able to trace his family further back than the year 1700. A major barrier to the genealogist is in mathematics  where with each generation the number of direct ancestors doubles. If a person were to trace back 20 generations, he would be dealing with more than a million direct forebears. Another difficulty is the spelling of names. Some people have found their family name spelled as many as 200 different ways. (Lou Nicholes - Missionary/Author).