135 Quotes About Ancestry

Genealogy itself is something of a privilege, coming far more easily to those of us for whom enslavement, conquest, and dispossession of our land has not been our lot.

The precise ancestry of a black drug dealer or cop killer is irrelevant. His blackness predicts and explains his crime. He reinforces the racist presumption. It is only when that presumption is questioned that a fine analysis of ancestry is invoked. Frederick Douglass was an ordinary nigger while working the fields. But as a famed abolitionist, it was often said that his genius must derive from his white half.

If I want to grow and blossom as any tree would, I have to start by knowing my roots and understand how I came to be the tree I am. Learn your ancestry.

They call our ancestors demons. They insunuate that we shared our lives, meals, and dreams with demons.

There is no nobler profession, nor no greater calling, than to be among those unheralded many who gave and give their lives to the preservation of human knowledge, passed with commitment and care from one generation to the next.

It is in the roots, not the branches, that a tree’s greatest strength lies.

Because survival and love are the immortal truths of humankind, no generation is a total stranger to the forerunner generations of humankind.

Genealogy was her favorite insanity.

No one is innocent in the tide of history. Everyone has kings and slaves in his past. Everyone has saints and sinners. We are not to blame for the actions of our ancestors. We can only try to be the best we can, no matter what our heritage, to strive for a better future for all.