Discovering Truths Via Genealogical Research
Etymology of “genealogy”:
Middle English genealogie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin genealogia, from Greek, from genea race, family + -logia -logy; akin to Greek genos race
Why Genealogy?
Across generations, entire identities have been constructed from a family rumor, a misunderstood story, or an assumption repeated so often it begins to sound like truth. In some cases, this has been done for nefarious purposes.
This is exactly why genealogy matters.
Evidence-based genealogy cuts through myth.
It reveals truth where stories have been stretched, mistaken, or invented.
It brings us back to who we truly come from—not who we wish to be or who someone once claimed to be, but the real people whose lives can be traced, generation by generation, through documented history.
People come to genealogy for many reasons—identity, healing, clarity, justice, re-connection, or curiosity. But beneath all those reasons lies one essential purpose: Genealogy allows us to reclaim the stories that society’s rulers tried to take away. They systematically frame things in their own image to rationalize their position of unequal power in the hierarchy of the social order.
For families shaped by colonization, displacement, forced assimilation, poverty, adoption, migration, and fractured records, genealogy becomes an act of restoration. Genealogy allows us to rebuild what was broken, recover names that were erased, and reclaim ancestral lines pushed into silence.
But the heart of genealogy will always be direct ancestry—the unbroken biological line that leads to us. These are the individuals whose identity, stories, and responsibilities we inherit. Their experiences shaped our existence long before we were born.
Direct genealogy gives us roots. Through direct genealogy, we discover not only who our ancestors were – we discover who we are, grounded in documented, evidence-based truth.
What is Genealogy?
Genealogy is the study of people through documents. It is not guesswork. A genealogical “family tree” is not built on rumors, assumptions, or stories of convenience. Genealogy bolsters identity not to satisfy emotion alone or worse, selfish monetary gain but to ground things in historical reality.
Genealogy is discipline. It is the science and art of reconstructing families through the irrefutable power of documented evidence.
Genealogy is grounded in original sources, such as:
- Mission baptisms, marriages, and burials
- Census schedules tracking identity and movement
- Land deeds and probate files revealing relationships and responsibility
- Vital records anchoring a life to time and place
- Newspapers, military rolls, court records, and oral histories
These records are not just ink on paper — they are the more like “the voices of our ancestors speaking across time.”
Every life must be anchored to evidence. This is how we separate truth from the unknown, the documented from the imagined, the real from the fabricated.
Genealogy, in a nutshell, is the study of family history. One builds a “family tree” one generation at a time. We come from biological parents, each of our parents came from different sets of parents, one’s grandparents, and so on and so forth. It is an investigative research process to ground things in historical fact, backed by documentation, ranging from simple things like birth and marriage records. As one conducts research and investigation further back across multiple generations, it can become increasingly challenging, but also extremely rewarding. A single document can inspire both a multitude of questions and also point towards clues that one may have never thought of before.
Genealogical research can uncover truths that one was never aware of before, which can lead to profound insights about the origins of family members’ behavior and cultural characteristics. Combining genealogy with socio/economic/political/cultural investigation can help locate family history in the larger arc of human history, thus placing personal identity in broader context. It can give more weight to the decisions we make about how we choose to live and interact with others in the present. Discovery of truths of family history can be empowering and even therapeutic in how it can deepen our understanding of the source of challenges faced by ancestors and assist us in deconstructing intergenerational traumas. Lessons can be drawn from histories of resilience, improving not only self-esteem, but the ability to navigate conflicts in the modern world.
Genealogy can help point us in the direction of reclaiming lost or suppressed cultural traditions which contain wisdom about how to live more harmoniously with Mother Earth. In many countries, like the United States and elsewhere, inequality is foundational to the dominant order and this includes systematic erasure of many positive cultural attributes and traditions that many families possessed for generations. Discoveries made in this journey of discovery can deepen our well-being and ability to empathize with the lives of others’.
What is Genealogy NOT?
Lateral (collateral) genealogy – siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. – “in-laws” give us context. These relatives and connections help us understand the world our ancestors lived in, even though they are not the line you descend from. Lateral relatives are not your ancestors. They build the context of your genealogy, not the lineage. Both matter, but they are not the same.
DNA testing can be a compliment to genealogical research, but is also not to be mistaken for genealogy. DNA testing is far from accurate and cannot locate you in the the trajectory of actual lineal descent. DNA testing will not locate you in the timeline of history. Persons claiming to be “this or that nationality” because a single DNA test showed single-digit results of “tribe XYX” in their DNA are citing a valid premise for determining where they really came from.
Again, genealogy is about EVIDENCE, not assumptions.
Now is the Time to Begin!
We live in a remarkable time.
For the first time in history, descendants have access to digital archives that were once scattered or restricted.
Sites like Ancestry, FamilySearch, FindAGrave, USGenWeb, the Early California Population Project (ECPP), PARES (Portal de Archivos Españoles), Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), México GenWeb, and the Mexico Civil Registration & Catholic Church Records collections — place centuries of records within reach.
These platforms/repositories allow us to uncover what was once hidden behind:
- locked mission and parish archives
- courthouse basements and forgotten ledgers
- incomplete histories
- family silence, shame, or lost memory
Today we can access documents that would have taken decades to locate.
And that accessibility changes everything.
With these tools, we can:
- correct misunderstandings passed down as truth
- rebuild lost histories altered or obscured
- verify lineage instead of guessing
- follow ancestors across borders and migrations
- replace myth with documented fact
- illuminate lives buried by trauma, erasure, or time
Evidence gives us clarity.
Evidence gives us confidence.
Evidence gives us truth.
And truth gives us responsibility.
Because once the documents reveal the real story, we must follow it—whether or not it aligns with family lore or modern identity claims.
True genealogy does not twist records to fit a narrative.
It follows the records wherever they lead.
Begin Your Journey – Tips for getting started
Some resources to start with
Preserve Your Research Findings
Improve your Genealogy Skills
Avoid Common Mistakes
Share Your Stories
Where does your family come from ORIGINALLY?
