Genealogy is that science that is dedicated to the study of the ancestors and the descendants of a family or family line.
Science that studies the ancestors and the descendants of a family
Etymologically, the term genealogy comes from the Greek language, according to which genes means offspring, birth and logos science.
Thus, genealogy is nothing more than the science or study of the descent and ancestry of an individual and their participation in a larger group to which they are related by blood ties.
It is transmitted orally and is linked to someone’s identity and origins
The family genealogy can be known through the oral stories that come from the very nucleus of the family.
These are transmitted from generation to generation and it is the oldest relatives who transmit them to the youngest so that they can later spread them to their descendants and so on.
Genealogy is a very interesting science since it has to do with the identity of a person, the knowledge of it and also its origins.
Thus, people interested in knowing their identity or where they come from, resort to genealogical studies that not only reveal the ancestors but also the ties with other family lines, their origins or provenance, etc.
Unexpected information is often discovered.
Although today genealogy is not extremely important or central as a science, this type of study was in times when lineage and inheritance were matters of life and death.
The importance of genealogy in the transmission of power
Here we can mention the Middle Ages, a stage in the history of humanity in which marriage and political ties were extremely important for the destiny of a nation, for which knowledge of them was vital.
In the Middle Ages, on the other hand, there were monarchical forms of government that assumed limited access and were organized around political relationships and coldly calculated inheritances.
Because most of the monarchies precisely establish that power is transmitted by direct family inheritance, that is, from a father to a son, a brother, a grandson, among other alternatives, but always respecting an order and consanguinity.
In those monarchies, which are the majority, and which transmit power through blood ties, all the monarchs come from the same family and thus it is guaranteed that the crown is always within it and is held by a member of said family.
This also guarantees continuity and stability, so that if the king abdicates or dies, his descendants, in hierarchical order, come to power.
If the monarch has not had children, the throne will fall to another direct relative such as a brother, nephew, cousin.
Historically, the line of succession has been based on primogeniture, that is, the eldest son is the direct successor, however, there have also been some differences in this regard, for example, some monarchies limited access to the crown to male offspring and excluded female offspring.
The well-known Salic law has precisely marked this difference and prohibited access to succession to the female daughters of monarchs.
At present it is not in force in any of the monarchies, although the Spanish and British monarchies, for example, follow the so-called agnatic law that establishes that female daughters will be behind their male brothers in the line of succession, while if not there is a male descendant and there is only a female descendant, the greatest woman among her sisters will accede to the throne.
The few existing monarchies today continue to be managed by this system which, among other things, establishes that the successors to a throne are the firstborn and then the next.
Genealogy usually takes the structure of a tree as a graphic metaphor of its structure and thus we find that there are family trees that represent a very abundant and varied number of members.
This is so because the tree with its branches and ramifications symbolizes the extensions of the ties that can occur within a family, as well as its complexity and abundance.
Study containing family genealogy details
On the other hand, the study that contains the components of a family is called genealogy.
Document that records the ancestry of a breed animal
And genealogy is also designated as that document in which the ancestry of a breed animal is recorded, acting as a guarantee of the reliability of its origin.
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