Jennifer Baccus

ECI 524 Dr. Lee

Global Inquiry Project

March 2014

The compelling question that I have chosen to investigate is, Do people who
have an in-depth knowledge of their family's genealogy have a broader worldview? Jill
Croy and I worked together to come up with this question. Our first try was "How many
adults have first hand knowledge their familys heritage?" We came up with this
question after we discovered that both of our husbands have no idea where their
families come from. They don't even know the origin of their family name. We shared
with one another how astounded we were when our respective spouses told us this. My
husband didn't even seem bothered that he had no idea what his family's heritage was.
After sharing stories about how narrow minded many of our spouses' family members
seem to be, we wondered if this might be true of other people who do not have a strong
connection to "who they are". We wondered if lack of knowledge of ones family name
and ones heritage could be associated with a more limited, parochial view of the world.
As David Hansen states, Cosmopolitanism on the ground does not contrast with the
local but can only find expression there. Each of its enactments becomes
instantaneously particularized and is informed by a sense of rootedness in the world. In
this outlook, it is impossible to be cosmopolitan without a sense of the local. At the same
time, it is impossible to be local, as contrasted with being parochial or close-minded,
without a cosmopolitan orientation. What characterizes cosmopolitanism from the
ground up is a fusion, sometimes tenuous and tension-laden, of receptivity to the new
and loyalty to the known.

After the brief study of cosmopolitanism that we have done in our class, I believe
that the world should be organized by the cosmopolitanism theory. I love the idea of
everyone being a citizen of the world, but that one should have a strong loyalty to their
known local ties in order to be receptive to the unknown global community. It does
make me wonder further if intense loyalty to the local leads to ignoring the unknown,
even ones family history? Does knowing ones heritage help them to be more open to
differences? I know that I am of German and Scottish heritage and it has always helped
me feel that I was a part of something bigger in the world. Given the diversity in the
community that I grew up in, it helped me feel that I had a special place in my American
community as well. As Hansen states about cosmopolitanism on the ground, perhaps
this knowledge of family heritage, accompanies a person, but need not dominate his or
her outlook. I believe that it is important for me as an educator of young children to at
least try to answer these questions and then based upon my findings try to answer this
question, How can teachers encourage students to be loyal to their local background
and receptive to the unknown through the study of their familys genealogy?
We were not sure exactly how to proceed with finding an answer to our questions
other than by interviewing people. Jill came up with the idea to create a survey on
www.surveymonkey.com, so that we could reach a broader number of respondents
given our short timeframe for research. The survey asked the following question: "Do
you know the origin of your family name?" Those who answered "yes" were asked a
follow-up question: "Do you have more extensive knowledge of your family history?"
and were also asked to explain if this knowledge has had an impact on their world view
and how. Those who answered "no" to the initial question were asked why they did not

possess knowledge of their family name and if they felt this had an impact on their world
view. 37 respondents believed they possessed more extensive knowledge of their
family history and most of these respondents listed what they knew. Of the 63
responses to the prompt, "If yes, please explain if you think this knowledge has had an
impact on your worldview and how." 27 responses believed having knowledge of family
history did impact their world view.Of the 30 people who did not have knowledge of their
family history, only 9 directly stated that not possessing this knowledge has had an
impact on their world view. The rest either did not believe their worldview was impacted,
or did not directly answer the question. Based on the comments from the survey I
noticed a couple of predominant themes connecting the responses.
The most common theme among the survey responses was a correlation
between knowing about ones heritage and in particular the cultural traditions of people
who share a similar heritage, helps one have a broader world view. One respondent
said that she felt comforted by knowing that her brother had recently done extensive
genealogical research her family. She states, I think the impact of not being familiar
with my family origins has limited my ability to feel connected to a culture/country
outside of American culture/United States. This may impact my worldview by limiting
myself greatly to only American cultures, beliefs, values, etc. Whereas, if I had a
deeper connection to family roots and my ancestors then I may have explored more of
my ancestors' country and their culture and adopted those ideas into my own. Another
respondent said that she felt her perspective was broader because she possessed this
knowledge, It's a matter of me knowing where I am from, what foods we eat - etc. It
also makes you a little more sympathetic to world issues and problems because you

feel like you have a connection.

Several respondents concurred with this idea of

being sympathetic, connected, and open minded due to knowledge of cultural traditions.
One respondent stated,I do think it has had an impact. I believe that if I would have
known earlier in life I would have pursued more knowledge of that particular country (or
countries) perhaps leading to a broader worldview and in turn a more open-minded
thought process. Another stated, I do think this has had an impact on my worldview
because my family celebrates our family heritage throughout the year and especially on
holidays. This has lead to me sharing with others about my traditions and cultures. I
value these, and therefore, want to learn more about other cultures. Many were
inspired to research the history of their countries of origin and even to travel to those
countries to learn more. As this respondent stated, it helps my family connect to those
other countries and their cultures and traditions.
The response that stood out the most to me among those that related to heritage
and culture was this one, I feel that I am connected to the rest of the world through my
family ties. My history is their history and vice versa. This idea is featured prominently
in an article that I read titled, Are You my Cousin?. I learned about a website called
Geni.com through this article which talks about crowdsourcing genealogy. According
to the website, Geni is creating one family tree for the entire world, built from the
collaborative research of millions of genealogists. As the article states, In a few years
we may have a single tree containing nearly all 7 billion humans on earth. The Family
of Man will no longer be an abstract cliche. Were all related, we just have to figure out
how. The author states that, A megatree might just make the world a kinder place.
Imagine how someone from the Ku Klux Klan might feel when he connects with his

African-American relatives. They wont be singing Kumbaya, but could it nudge him
toward more tolerance? I hope so. As our survey respondent put so simply, Their
history is our history. and as the article states,If everyone is related what does the
concept of family even mean? I think in order for society to move forward in a positive ,
cosmopolitan manner the sooner we embrace these ideas the better. The sooner we
realize that we are all connected somehow, somewhere the more likely it is that we can
solve the worlds many problems together. This puts us in a position, as educators, to
facilitate finding these connections with our students. As a third grade teacher, this
could be school project, to discover not only each childs individual family history, but to
attempt to discover how each individual is in some way connected to every other
individual in the class.
Another common theme among respondents was how knowledge of ones family
history helped one make connections to immigrants from other countries. One
respondent stated, It has given me a sense of how my ancestors took part in early days
of colonization, as well as making explore more information on immigrant populations.
Another stated, My knowing about family history has connected me with that we are all
immigrants.

One respondent equated her knowledge with his cosmopolitan attitude

toward the world, I come from a varied of foreign back ground. My mother's family was
from Italy, my father's family from Spain and France. We grew up listening to Spanish,
Italian, French and or course Portuguese. I knew I was an "international citizen" from an
early age. :) I always values the immigrants' contribution to the countries they chose or
were chosen for them and the hard work they endured to make a living for themselves
and their families. Two respondents stated that their knowledge and connection to

immigrants made them feel part of the world community, Knowing I come from
immigrants makes the world feel smaller. Although I don't know the details, I'd like to
think that my worldview has been impacted due to my curiousity. How did my
grandfather get here? How did yours? Wondering about others' stories humanizes the
sea of faces I see everyday.
After reading the responses from the survey, particularly the ones about how
feeling connected to immigrants broadened ones view of the global community, I
decided to take a closer look at my husbands family. He grew up in Perquimans
County, North Carolina in the small town of Hertford. Hertford has a population of
2,168. Other than himself and his sister, pretty much his entire family, including both
grandmothers, his mother, all of his aunts and all of his 1st cousins live in either Hertford
or nearby Elizabeth City which is in Pasquotank County. Not to mention nearly all of his
mothers and fathers aunts and uncles and first cousins. Since no one in his
immediate family has knowledge of their familys genealogy, I decided to join
www.ancestry.com and do some research. I had to go all the way back to the early
1600s to find a family member who lived anywhere other than these two counties. It
turns out that his family came to North Carolina from Pennsylvania after immigrating
from Wales and England. Learning this helped me understand why no one knew the
origin of the family name or the familys history. Why would they if no one had taken the
time to do the research? As far as they are concerned they are from North Carolina,
always have been and, for most, always will be. One of the survey respondents made
the following statement, In the south I think a lot of people associate themselves as
southerners instead of the old world family connections. They don't think of themselves

as immigrants and therefore have a smaller world view and are less sympathetic to new
immigrants. In my experience with my husbands family this definitely seems to be the
case. I have heard multiple family members make rather racist statements. Many have
such an intense loyalty to their local heritage that they do not like to be away from their
hometown for more than a day or two. They dont know about the world outside of
Hertford and dont really care to. This attitude is quite opposite from the cosmopolitans
who works hard to balance their loyalty to the local with a receptiveness to the new and
unknown.
In his article., Genealogy As A Tool For Self-Knowledge And Family Therapy,
Tom Rue says, Beginning to learn about one's heritage, even by speaking with
available older relatives about their pasts, can help facilitate self-awareness as a
member of a group and provide a bridge to a forgotten cultural base, empowering
individuals and family systems to confirm or reweave their values, identify patterns, and
make changes in personal, family and cultural activities; all of which in turn may give
hope for curing present social ills. In another article, Toward a Conceptual
Framework for Understanding Cosmopolitanism on the Ground, Ninni Wahstrom refers
to the Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the leisure-time centre
2011. Stockholm: The Swedish National Agency for Education. This guide states that,
Awareness of ones own cultural origins and sharing in a common cultural heritage
provides a secure identity which it is important to develop, together with the ability to
understand and empathise with the values and conditions of others.(CCS, 2011, p. 9)
For my unit of study, I would like to continue to explore what I have learned through this
inquiry and create a unit for my third grade class in which they find information about

their place in our common world history. I hope to make use of the websites that I used
for this project and will be able to garner parental support to help my students see that,
Their history is our history.