NY Comic Con-esque event draws participants from around the world, celebrities, in celebration of relatives near and far
What is more unexpected: that Jewish author A.J. Jacobs, known for his ambitious lifestyle experiments, has some Asian and Scandinavian roots? Or that rapper Ludacris is 1/16th Jewish?
These are the types of questions that were raised by the Global Family Reunion on June 6, a Comic Con-esque celebration of the advancement of genealogy technology. People from countries as far away as New Zealand and Brazil, along with a diverse cast of celebrity speakers and musicians, gathered on the grounds of the New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York to emphasize one basic but uplifting idea: that we’re all more related than we thought.
Before June 6, Jacobs, an Esquire editor-at-large and the author of seven books (on projects ranging from following the Bible as closely as possible to engaging in extreme exercise regimens), spent over a year compiling the world’s largest family tree with the help of companies such as MyHeritage, FamilySearch, WikiTree and Findmypast. The goal was to create a global family tree that connects as many people as possible through blood or marriage – even if they are 30 or 40 steps away from one another on the ancestral branches.
The results were fascinating. Overall, the project found connections between some 77 million people. Jacobs, of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, discovered that he had connections to celebrities such as Daniel Radcliffe, Olivia Wilde and even President George H.W. Bush.
Still, even though large websites such as MyHeritage (which is based in Or Yehuda, Israel) and Ancestry.com have made the task much easier, the art of constructing a large family tree isn’t always an exact science (and Jewish genealogy in particular was considered especially difficult in past decades because of the destruction and scattered immigration effects of the Holocaust, as well as the many years of Eastern Europe being under the Iron Curtain). These companies have licensing agreements with archives, libraries and other institutions that own official records, which paid subscribers can use to research their ancestors – such as old birth certificates, military records and travel information. The big names like MyHeritage say they boast technology that self-corrects mistakes, such as a misspelled name or an incorrect birthday, which could send a family tree down a slippery slope of misinformation.
Overall, the event was a star-studded representation of how far the online genealogy movement has come. But behind the day’s celebrity glamor, Jacobs is genuine about making people look at one another differently. Cass Sunstein, a prominent Harvard Law School professor – and Jacobs’ first cousin once removed – perhaps best summarized the sentiments behind the project after his talk.
“We tend to think of members of our family as people we protect and sacrifice for and care for, and that tends to be limited to a very small group,” Sunstein told JTA. “But if you think of the extent to which your connections are much broader and more surprising than you know, then maybe those feelings of generosity and kindness can broaden.”
Well said, professor.
As reported by The Times of Israel