67 genetic genealogy quotes

From the new to me English site Abroad in the Yard, a fascinating historical collection, comes 67 Quotes for Genetic Genealogists - compiled by Sanda Rimmer. Here are three:

33.    “In genealogy you might say that interest lies in the eye of the gene holder.  The actual descendants are far more intrigued with it all than the listeners, who quickly sink into a narcoleptic coma after the second or third great-great-somebody kills a bear or beheads Charles I, invents the safety pin or strip-mines Poland, catalogues slime molds, dances flamenco, or falls in love with a sheep.  Genealogy is a forced march through stories..."     Ellen Meloy

46.    “Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn’t be ashamed of it.  As far as I’m concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren’t twelve year old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters.  No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers.”   Cameron Trost

63.    “…all the dutiful grandchildren and great-grandchildren lingering over deathbeds with digital recorders, or else mechanically pursuing their ancestors through the online genealogy sites at three in the morning, so very eager to reconstitute the lives and thoughts of dead and soon-to-dead men, though they may regularly screen the phone calls of their own mothers.  I am of that generation.  I will do anything for my family except see them.”   Zadie Smith