The point is that in Western Europe, compiling genealogies has become an extremely fashionable hobby. Until recently, genealogical research was widespread only in the United States, which is not surprising for a nation of immigrants needing to establish their own roots for self-identification. In recent years, Europe has begun to resemble America more and more in this regard: the large influx of immigrants and increased population mobility have made private detective services widely in demand. Especially in France, which is due to the specifics of French legislation on inheritance of property.
Church of Genealogy
Over three days, more than fifteen thousand visitors visited the exhibition halls at Porte de Champerret in Paris (the entrance fee was considerable – 10 euros). A single Union of Syndicates of professional genealogy specialists in France was established. The results of the genealogy championship held throughout the Fifth Republic were summed up; its winner received a check for 1.700 euros and a grant for an internship in May next year at the holy of holies of pedigree enthusiasts – the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City, America.
"By the most approximate estimates, up to 800,000 French people are engaged in genealogical research today," Jean Louis Bocarno, host of a regular genealogy program on the popular Paris radio station Europe 1, told Itogi. "There are many reasons for such an interest in one's roots. This includes the industrial revolution, which is destroying peasant traditions, and the mass exodus of residents from villages to cities, and the growth in the number of immigrants and consequently mixed marriages, multinational families... The modern world is changing so rapidly that people see the family as the main, almost the only stronghold of their confidence in tomorrow. And the family is part of a single clan, a mighty lineage, of which each of us wants to feel a member. In addition, with the introduction of the 35-hour work week, the French have more free time to go to the library, dig through archives, visit parents, meet with relatives..."
Of course, in the 21st century people cannot live according to patriarchal traditions, but genealogical research reconciles the present day with the past, allows us to better understand both modernity and ourselves in it. If earlier the phenomenon of mass fascination with genealogy was characteristic of America (only 54 million Americans regularly search for their roots via the Internet), today the "genealogy virus" has moved across the Atlantic to the Old World, primarily to France. For example, when on July 13, 2001, the descendants of Albert de Venable, who set off with William the Conqueror in 1066 to conquer England, gathered for a family reunion in Normandy, there turned out to be about a thousand of them.
And indeed, a paradox: despite the traditional French rejection of everything that is even superficially, tangentially connected with America, in some areas of life the descendants of the Gauls are increasingly resembling Yankees today. Say, when it comes to the genealogical hobby. More than 50,000 French people regularly pay dues to the French Federation of Genealogy. This organization unites 160 associations of pedigree researchers out of 400 other genealogical structures existing in the Fifth Republic.
At the exhibition in Paris, more than fifty stands were displayed, representing the largest genealogical firms and associations. Including the exposition of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," that is, the Mormons, who are considered unsurpassed world authorities in the genealogical field. Specialists from the American state of Utah came to the biennale for the first time, and their appearance caused a far from unambiguous reaction among the French, who are skeptical of non-traditional religious organizations.
"The appearance of Mormons in Paris has nothing to do with proselytism," Michel Sementary, president of the French Federation of Genealogy, hastened to dampen passions. "Mormons interest us only as the very first professionals in the world in genealogy."
For many years now, Mormons have been recording civil registry books on microfilm on all continents. Their archives, kept in Salt Lake City in a huge concrete bunker, contain files on three billion inhabitants of our planet. Not only the living, but also those who have long since departed. Mormons do not hide that their goal is to baptize, even if in absentia, in accordance with their rite, all people, including the dead. "Frankly speaking," says Sementary, "I couldn't care less that somewhere far away my long-departed ancestors were posthumously counted among the Mormons, but for me they did a gigantic archival job and found information about my family that I would never have found on my own."
The "Latter-day Saints" engage in this "godly" work completely selflessly. There is no need to look far for examples. My good Parisian acquaintance Pyotr Shidivar, a musician known among the Russian and Ukrainian emigration, turned to the Mormons for genealogical help several years ago. And so, thanks to the Americans from Utah, it turned out that my friend, who once left for the West from Soviet Odessa, has noble princely roots. It turns out that a distant ancestor of Peter-Pierre was from Hungary, and his descendants scattered all over the globe and now live both in the CIS and in Germany, France, America, and even Australia and Argentina.
With the help of Mormon computers, Shidivar not only established contact with seemingly forever lost relatives, but also incidentally discovered the genealogical roots of his wife, whose grandfather and grandmother, as it was reliably learned, roamed Siberia with the same theater troupe as Yul Brynner himself, the American actor of Russian origin.
Those who have a shortage of relatives or who were unlucky with their ancestors should not be upset either. Specifically for them, a new branch of psychology called psychogenealogy has recently emerged. Its "bible" became the book by French psychologist Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, "Alas, My Ancestors". This bestseller, published in seventeen editions totaling 300,000 copies, has been translated into seven languages.
"Each of us, to one degree or another, carries the suitcases of our ancestors through life," says Anne Ancelin Schützenberger. "If some relatives, as it turns out during genealogical excavations, were gifted, enterprising, or even famous, then others were gray, unlucky, or even criminal. There were cases when, having built their family tree, people were horrified and fell into melancholy... That is when the help of specialists is needed. Not to mention that genealogical searches can only be trusted to true professionals. There is too much fraud where there is the smell of money."
To be continued.