The fun of adoption...

[gilmore]

Adoption is not as important as blood in genealogy. While adoption makes it your family legally, there isn't a blood connection, which is what genealogy is really all about; that is, 'I am descended from so-and-so and carry his/her genetic code.' When doing ancestor search, search for your blood; however, this will be more difficult with adoptions, as those are legal acts.

I'm not referring here to who your family is in regard to legally and/or sentiment, but rather genealogical/blood ties.

I don't agree with this at all.

What makes a family a family, and a descent a descent, is culturally determined and not carved in stone. E.g., in some cultures the groom sometimes becomes part of his wife's family, and their progeny are thought of as her family's, regardless of genetics or "blood." There are many other such examples. This is the pluralistic 21 Century. The notion that only genetic connections are normative and worthy of genealogical research is no longer applicable.

In fact that was never the case.

In both Europe and American cultures, some 3.7% to 4% of births are misattributed paternity. That is, the alleged father of a child is not the mother's husband. That is of course about one in 25. This is a seemingly small number, but over the generations it accumulates until on average after some 19 or 20 generations or so there is at least one non-paternal event (NPE), as they are called in genetic genealogy. There is a formula for determinning the likelihood of an NPE having occured in any given number of generations that I can dig up, if anyone interested.

Twenty generations is only something less than six centuries usually, at 27 years per male generation, a standard calculation.

So, most of us who liked to boast that we descend from the Magna Carta Sureties, Companions of the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Niall of the Seven Hostages, Somerled, etc, may very well be, but, more likely than not, not in the ways that the paper trails indicate.