[wombatmobile]

> I've always been amazed by this ability to track your ancestors hundreds of years back. Were the records that good back then?

"... between 1640 and 1700, the literacy rate for men in Massachusetts and Connecticut was somewhere between 89 percent and 95 percent, quite probably the highest concentration of literate males to be found anywhere in the world at that time. The literacy rate for women in those colonies is estimated to have run as high as 62 percent in the years 1681-1697.

"... Since the male literacy rate in seventeenth-century England did not exceed 40 percent, we may assume, first of all, that the migrants to New England came from more literate areas of England or from more literate segments of the population, or both. In other words, they came here as readers and were certain to believe that reading was as important in the New World as it was in the Old. Second, from 1650 onwards almost all New England towns passed laws requiring the maintenance of a "reading and writing" school, the large communities being required to maintain a grammar school as well."

-- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

[buran77]

Would the group of literate people contain enough people also concerned with accurate record keeping? They seem to be relatively distinct and not necessarily overlapping skills or interests. And plenty of record get lost no matter how well they're kept. Fires, floods, disinterest, etc.

But for some people such a lineage is like a vanity address. And they will go out of their way to dig up a connection like this and absent that they will create one. Throughout the world it's pure gold especially for politicians, it establishes the kind of historical legitimacy and connection to land and country that's far more exclusive than "just" joining the military (the other common vehicle for populist patriotism, even if one would never be exposed to any real danger).

[wombatmobile]

> They seem to be relatively distinct and not necessarily overlapping skills or interests.

Actually, literacy is a prerequisite for record keeping.

[kuzimoto]

I think what they meant was that having an interest in literacy doesn't mean someone is also interested in record keeping.