27 March 2008

Famous Person A is Related to Famous Person B

While I love genealogy, I am to the point where I could not care any less who a politician is related to. Many news organizations cannot even get the details correct, often times refer to the living person as an "ancestor" instead of a descendant, continue to act surprised that African-Americans oftentimes have slave ancestors, and occasionally reprint ancestries that have long been proven incorrect. When genealogists can easily find errors in these news stories, it makes you wonder how many errors there are in other stories?

While I am interested in my own genealogy, I have little interest in that of Obama, Clinton, or McCain. And while I find genealogy inordinately interesting, I wish the media would spend a little more time reporting on real problems and issues this country faces. Social security and medicare are ticking time bombs, health care is a disaster, and the price of gas is out of this world. And we are worried about who descends from Robert the Bruce? Methinks too many descend from Wodulf the Simpleton.

Frankly I'd be happy if I weren't related to any politicians. I'm not certain it is anything to brag about. I'd rather be related to people who were not constantly trying to spin everything and position themselves for the media.

I'm off my soapbox and back to genealogy.

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