Genealogy and whakapapa
Genealogies are ‘family trees’, graphical or textual representations of ancestors and their family relationships.
Pākehā genealogies share similar structural forms to Māori whakapapa. But there are significant differences.
- Whakapapa are the basis of the traditional Māori world view. The human genealogy in whakapapa may be embedded in a broader context, including plants and animals, as well as human family relationships.
- Whakapapa have traditionally been passed down through the generations orally, though many are now documented.
- Pākehā genealogies are usually recorded on paper (written as charts or in family Bibles) or on computers in databases, though they may also include oral history.
Family histories
Genealogies are often accompanied by family histories – stories about the ancestors and their kinsfolk. The stories may be of migration or long settlement in a particular locality, of education and employment, of political and religious affiliations, of domestic life or involvement in dramatic historical events.
Importance of genealogies
The values and attitudes of earlier generations, often embodied in their stories and their property and heirlooms, are typically passed down to their descendants. They can help shape the descendants’ identities and lives, and how people make sense of them.
Genealogies give opportunities to construct identity. This may be as simple as recognising family likenesses, or as complex as adopting or rejecting a parent’s personal attributes. People use genealogies and family histories to locate themselves in the history of their country and in particular geographical regions. Stories about what their ancestors did, their religious faith and their travels across great distances can make people feel differently about themselves. New Zealand genealogies and family histories, like whakapapa, often begin with the great overlapping migrations of Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika and Asian ancestors.
Uses of genealogies
An important use of genealogies is for family reunions. The research identifies people to invite and provides a focus for reunion participants, so they can see where they fit in and identify their kinship relationship to others at the reunion. Family histories are often collected for events such as 80th birthdays.
Wider knowledge
Discoveries about ancestors give wider knowledge of ancestral links to different countries and ethnic groups, and of lives different from our own, with high childhood mortality, often recorded by poignant gravestones. Ancestors may have experienced poverty or criminal convictions, and displayed courage and determination in adverse circumstances, such as arduous voyages to a new colony, or family breakdown due to death, desertion or disease.
Two degrees of separation
Family histories are generally seen as either individual stories or raw materials for social histories. However a mathematician has calculated that someone with English ancestry on both sides and no cousin marriages can trace their ancestry to 86% of the population of England in 1066. The further back we go, the more ‘representative’ of whole populations are the ancestors in family histories.
Mega-family history
Individual genealogies and family histories have been published in thousands of books that collectively tell the story of British emigration and its New Zealand strand. Migration changes both source and destination societies. The early chapters of these books collectively tell the story of these changes.
