Why Genealogies?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I've been wondering about Hobbits and their strong interest in their family histories - what motivates them, a fairly rustic people with little book learning, to busy themselves with genealogy? We read that their family trees are important, indeed, providing the contents of the only books that interest many of them at all.

Why would a folk so concerned with the immediate creature comforts of daily life spend so much time delving into the past? Is it because they show little interest in the future, not being very concerned with what is to come? Is it because they have almost no interest in matters of the big world outside of the Shire that they concentrate on small matters? Or is it the close-knit community feeling that inspires them to stress the links between the families, a desire for harmony in their society?

The other question that ties into this one concerns Tolkien himself; he said that he was a Hobbit in all but stature. I don't remember reading of any particular interest in his genealogy, but if he endowed his Hobbits with personal traits, it is possible that there was some of that in him. Would he have been desirous of proving his Englishness despite his German last name by concentrating on the English family tree?

Are any of you into genealogy and family history? What motivates you - do you see yourself as having Hobbit nature?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Well, just a short comment from me now. I think most of what you said could be a part of the reason. But I also thought of something else, and that's what I thought of as the first, that simply Hobbits were so much of a rural simple folk, that they just had to have something "intellectually deep" to spend their time with. I am pretty sure they usually did not delve into complicated philosophical disputations, we know they did not construct complicated technological inventions, but let's face it, they must have had some "intellectual needs" and they must have ventilated them in some way. So they picked the genealogies. As good topic as any.

[Selmo]

The Hobbits of The Shire lived in a society modelled on that of Nineteenth Century rural England. In such a system, a person's identity depended not so much on his character or abilities as on the relative importance of his family and his "class".

Geneology becomes very important to you if your position in society and your prospects in life depend on how closely related you are to the more powerful, land-owning families.

.

[Bêthberry]

A very interesting thread, Esty, and a rare one, as I cannot recall seeing this topic discussed in the ancient days of the Barrow.

Selmo's response about the class-riddled nature of the English society upon which Tolkien based his Shire is a good point. It reminds me of a book I read as a youngster about young Victoria, someday queen and empress. Her tutors had been forbifdden to tell her where she stood in line to the throne but as she was filling out, at the age of 11, her personal family tree upon the death of her uncle George (the IV), and writing in Uncle William now as William IV, she asked her tutor how she should fill out heir apparent. At that point, her tutor broke with his instructions and informed her to write in her own name. What a welcome to puberty that must have been.

Yet who outside the British nobility and aristocracy kept family geneologies? In many Protestant families, family Bibles were used to record marriages, births, deaths--and how fitting, considering how often "begats" form the record of the early books of the Bible. Yet I don't think the record of family histories is so easily traced for the lower classes.

Yet kinship is a fascinating topic, for that is essentially what geneologies trace. And kinship became a focus of formal study only in the late Victorian era and was predominant in anthropology in the early twentieth century, when Tolkien was himself an academic involved in, if one may say, the geneology of languages. Certainly his own created languages display an interest in language trees.

For anthropology of the early twentieth century, studying kinship systems was limited to studying early cultures, not the so-called modern Western cultures. So study was focussed on such societies as the various Aboriginal tribes of North America, Inuit groups in the north, south Pacific societies, and some African and Australian groups. Was Tolkien influenced by this focus on so called "primitive" cultures to give his hobbits an extensive kinship system, as a way of differentiating them from the elevated societies of elves? If so, he does not really give us much sense of what obligations this kinship created, of what obligations were involved in the organising of society this way. We know that Bilbo adopted his nephew Frodo upon the death of Frodo's parents. And we know something about the Sackville-Baggins' view of the kinship, which seems to have developed through extensive intermarriage. But we aren't really sure if degrees of kinship are related to inheritance or succession or how they created, if at all, patterns of behaviour in The Shire.

In a recent post (which I don't have time to find at the moment), Squatter of Amon Rudh suggested that the hobbits were a faulty society which had forgotten their mythological origins, a form of learning and history not forgotten in Gondor. If one accepts this valuation, it does seem that the hobbits' interest in family trees is regarded as a petty learning. Yet we do know how Arwen was related to Aragorn and that she was lost to history upon her death--having chosen mortal men. The elven kinship seems clearly related to inheritance and succession and we don't know if the non-ruling elven families had the same interest in family trees that hobbit families had.

So, was Tolkien merely borrowing the anthropological focus on indigenous cultures to characterise his hobbits? Or was something more involved, something which would prompt a Frodo to accept an obligation to preserve the group?

[Gwathagor]

correct spelling: genealogy

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

correct spelling: genealogy

Oops! My English skills have obviously diminished since living in Europe. I will edit the title and my first post so that they are correct. Thanks, Gwath!

Thanks to all who have added their thoughts to the discussion - I very much enjoy reading them. Selmo brings in an important British cultural aspect which is quite relevant. Interesting thought on philosophical depth, Legate!

Thanks for the cultural and anthropological comparisons, Bb - lots of food for thought there. Ibrîn, that's a very good quote on the Gondorian relationship to genealogies. Your thoughts on the connection between family trees and immortality are fascinating. Legate carries on what the two of you began, reflections on Elves and family history. It is interesting to realize that their ancestors were often still alive! I wonder, are family trees only interesting when the people listed on them are dead and gone?

Selmo, your last thought is quote practical - we know how much easier it is to keep track of historical (and faux-historical) characters when we have a written family tree on which to locate them.

I'm very much enjoying all of the contributions here!

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

So, was Tolkien merely borrowing the anthropological focus on indigenous cultures to characterise his hobbits? Or was something more involved, something which would prompt a Frodo to accept an obligation to preserve the group?

I think it might perhaps be a bit of both, although I'm most inclined to think that Tolkien was attempting to make the Hobbits the "most English" of the peoples of Middle-earth. Genealogy appears to be a pastime of the mortals rather than the immortals, no doubt because there are more generations of Hobbits and Men than there are of Elves (and possibly of Dwarves, but being secretive in nature, we know less about them). There are certainly aspects of the importance of lineage among the descendants of the Numenoreans; remember Faramir's comment to Frodo, "Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons." I find it interesting that the tracing of family history is a common interest among the "lowly" Hobbits and the "high" Numenoreans, particularly since it seems a more wholesome pursuit among the Hobbits. The Men of Gondor seem to have made it into something not exactly twisted, but also not quite healthy. In the Hobbits, it feels more like a connection to life, remembering all your relatives as part of one large family. And among the Numenoreans, it feels like a preoccupation with death and an attempt to gain some kind of immortality, in memory if not in the flesh. I often think that the people I know who are genealogy buffs are like the Numenoreans, searching for the nobility of their ancestors so that they can become a part of a family tree that will never die, since they themselves will, and fear becoming forgotton.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Wow, Ibri, it does not allow me to give you a reputation right now, so let me say it just here that I find what you said here very well-thought and very well said, and I would agree with what you say here about both the Hobbits and the Númenoreans (or Men in general, with the kind of "wish to preserve immortality by setting their name into a part of something", either history or inscribing it into stone somewhere. Hey, do not - or did not, maybe? Not as much anymore nowadays? - humans actually do that always, trying to find themselves immortality as part of something that transcends them, a history of a noble family, or a history of a country, a history of a movement?). The only question here would be - how do the Elves fit into the picture? What role does genealogy play among their kind? Except for the status of e.g. inheriting the title of the King of Noldor, there seems not to be much point in that. So, for myself, I would say that the Elves, except for when it comes to inheriting such a title, would actually have little interest for the genealogy themselves, neither of their own (since they could as well just remember it anyway, who is whose cousin, with their long lifespan, even if it had any high importance which I somehow doubt) nor of any other peoples (simply as, said with Lindir, "they have more important matters on their hands"). Maybe with the slight exception of following the lineage of Lúthien, which, however, was just a single and special case. But otherwise, probably just this High King of Noldor heritage and such.
Anyway I still think it is kind of weird for the Elves to have any hierarchy of nobility (an inherited one, the more) in their society at all. But that would be for a different topic.

[Marlowe221]

Originally Posted by Selmo

The Hobbits of The Shire lived in a society modelled on that of Nineteenth Century rural England. In such a system, a person's identity depended not so much on his character or abilities as on the relative importance of his family and his "class".

Geneology becomes very important to you if your position in society and your prospects in life depend on how closely related you are to the more powerful, land-owning families.

.

I agree.

I will also say that, from personal experience, living in a very small town in the American South, that who you are related to matters to other people. I am not from this town or county - work brought me here and I am, thus, an outsider. People here are always asking me who my "kin people" are and where they (and I) are from. They care. Rural societies have not changed much in that regard.

Genealogy is how you keep track of that.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Marlowe221

I will also say that, from personal experience, living in a very small town in the American South, that who you are related to matters to other people. I am not from this town or county - work brought me here and I am, thus, an outsider. People here are always asking me who my "kin people" are and where they (and I) are from. They care. Rural societies have not changed much in that regard.

Genealogy is how you keep track of that.

I live in the same area, though I was born here. I will confirm what you say, that rural living tends to keep family members in closer proximity, and relationships are indeed a means by which people recognize one. I have a very common surname, and I still get asked occasionally if I'm related to so-and-so.

The Shire Hobbits, being such a closed community, would naturally have been the same way. That's also evidenced in Bree, where the Underhills from Staddle were convinced Frodo was a relative, and took him to heart as such.

[Marlowe221]

Not only that but in a small community, as the communities of The Shire no doubt were, the same families would have known one another, intermarried with each other, and done business with each other for generations.

We're talking hundreds of years here. In a society with few (if any) written laws, no real government, and relatively low populations, those family histories and relationships would matter A LOT.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I live in the same area, though I was born here. I will confirm what you say, that rural living tends to keep family members in closer proximity, and relationships are indeed a means by which people recognize one. I have a very common surname, and I still get asked occasionally if I'm related to so-and-so.

The Shire Hobbits, being such a closed community, would naturally have been the same way. That's also evidenced in Bree, where the Underhills from Staddle were convinced Frodo was a relative, and took him to heart as such.

Surnames and the inevitable genealogical derivations and attendant assumptions regarding one's place in society were a long-standing issue in many insular communities.

An excellent example is the Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker character in Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". Although his family has resided in the environs of Dublin for well over 1200 years, his surname is of Danish derivation and recalls the Viking invasion of Ireland; thus, Earwicker is accused of "Scandiknavery".