And, you know, the fact is, if you believe in evolution, we all have a common ancestor, and we all have a common ancestry with the plant in the lobby. This is what evolution tells us. And, it's true. It's kind of unbelievable.
In the founders of great families, titles or attributes of honor are generally correspondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in their descendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continue, but the intrinsic value is frequently lost.
There's a boom in genealogy now. With ancestry. com and other sites digitizing so many of the records, you can now find things in a few minutes that used to take months.
It has been estimated that one third of our Western civilization bears the mark of its Jewish ancestry.
Breed is stronger than pasture.
Few sons attain the praise Of their great sires and most their sires disgrace.
No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.
I know this was the soil on which I was born: but I have nothing to glorify this as my country. I have no pride of ancestry to point back to. Our forefathers did not come here as did the Pilgrim fathers, in search of a place where they could enjoy civil and religious liberties.
The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the hauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable only because they are old; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream would see nothing but the impurity of the source.
I get anxious. That lovely Jewish guilt that comes with ancestry.
We really invented the genre of tracing family trees and going back as far as we could on the paper trail. When the paper trail disappeared, we used DNA analysis. The technology was just being invented that allowed you to trace ancestry through DNA.
Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.
Heredity is nothing but stored environment.
It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.
Maybe if I go far enough back into my ancestry, I have African roots or something. I've got no idea
For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions that Irish-Americans.
Pride thyself on what virtue thou hast, and not on thy parentage.
America today is running on the momentum of a godly ancestry, and when that momentum runs down, God help America.
Pedigrees seldom improve by age; the grandson is too often a weak infringement on the grandsire's parent.
It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.