What is Family Heritage?

The heritage we attach to our family speaks more deeply about our origins and it pertains to many of the aspects of what formed the way our ancestors lived their lives. In this article we are going to look more closely into what we mean by family heritage.

Why Is It Important to Celebrate Family Heritage?

We may not always know a lot about our more distant ancestors' individual lives but understanding where they came from and the beliefs they likely held can inform us somewhat of how they may have lived their lives.

Creating a Connection

Ask yourself how many of your first cousins do you know? How about second and third cousins? Many out there may know their first cousins, maybe even some second cousins but most might not be able to name a third cousin although we likely have numerous.

A century or so ago our great grandparents likely knew first, second and third cousins and may even have lived close to them. Families were often much closer geographically and played a greater role in one another's lives.

When we come to the modern day we are often more spread out and perhaps meeting second and third cousins only really happens at a wedding or a funeral. We could be standing behind a third cousin at the grocery store and not even realize it.

People we share blood with may be complete strangers although they share the same heritage. It may be religious beliefs or an ethnic identity but despite potentially being separated by thousands of miles that shared heritage does create a connection.

A Shared History

As part of our family heritage there is a shared history, a story of the people who came together to create our existence. We share the history of an immigrant ancestor or individuals who went through hardships to survive and pass down their DNA to us.

Cousins who have never met may make the same traditional recipe that has been passed down in a family from a great-grandparent. A common traditional dish may adorn the celebration table of an annual heritage event.

Copies of the same photograph of a couple long deceased may adorn the walls of households with no other obvious connection other than the owners are descended from the subjects of the image. These simple aspects of our day to day life nod to our heritage and connect us to long separated cousins.

Heritage Carries a Strong Sense of Values

As DNA is passed down so too are the family's beliefs and values. These may persist generation after generation but sometimes these traditional beliefs fall away and are abandoned. Sometimes families will carry their beliefs to a new land or may have to abandon them to avoid persecution. They are however the ideologies that informed their daily lives and formed their moral choices.

How to Celebrate Your Heritage

Those whose family heritage may have waned from their daily lives with the passing of generations may not feel a strong link to their ancestral history. They may even have a new sense of heritage based on new family connections of an identity as an immigrant to a new nation.

Still however as you delve into your family's path you may find their heritage intriguing and you may want to explore that as a way to connect with your roots. This may involve researching the traditions of your ancestors based on where they came from and what religions they followed.

Learn the Language

One aspect of heritage that can disappear when a family makes a move to another country is language. It often becomes easier just to learn the local language and abandon the mother tongue. Even after a few generations the day to day use of the family's traditional language can have gone out of use.

This is why a great way to make a connection to your ancestors is to learn the words they would have spoken. Taking classes in your family's traditional language repairs a bridge between yourself and earlier generations while giving you a connection to your linguistic heritage.

Connect With the Elders

The family's heritage may have waned when it comes to our generation but those of the earlier generations who are still with us are a great resource for forming some of the old bonds. Seek out the memories of your parents, grandparents or even great grandparents should you be fortunate enough to still have them.

Speaking with the elders of the family can teach us not only about family stories but some of the heritage that may have been left behind. They may remember celebrations from their childhood and some of the beliefs that the family brought with them.

Explore Traditional Foods

A fortunate family is one who passes down recipes from generation to generation. Cooking a recipe that has been passed down from an ancestor is a great way to connect with the family heritage. Eating the same dish made in the same way as your ancestors would have made it makes a strong cultural connection.

If you don’t have family recipes that have been passed down you can still achieve this connection by researching the foods that your ancestors likely ate. There are many traditional dishes in most cultures and living in such a multicultural world you can often find ingredients that are traditional for most cuisines.

Travel to the Homeland

You may have been born thousands of miles from the country that your ancestors first came from and generations of your ancestors may not have returned to that destination since leaving. Despite the passage of years the people of that country and the heritage would still be familiar to your ancestors.

This is why if you have the chance to visit your ancestral homeland this can be a great way to connect with your heritage. A vacation to try and find some of the places your ancestors may have lived or even to visit their gravesites can develop a deep connection.

There are even specific vacation packages that are designed as heritage tours for those seeking to reconnect with the land of their ancestors. You may even have cousins who still live in the region who you might be able to visit with. Those wishing to do this should also consider learning the language as well to make for an even more immersive experience.

Final Thoughts

Family heritage by definition is the values, beliefs and traditions of our ancestors. It is the shared culture, history and religions that made up our ancestral relatives' daily way of life. It is something that lies in our own history and reconnecting with it can be beneficial for our own personal growth.

Neil Edwards

Genealogist and family-tree research specialist

Neil was born in Shropshire, England surrounded by centuries of living history. His interest in the past has been a lifelong passion leading to undergraduate degrees in both Economic History & Geography and History & Politics.

This interest in history quickly translated to family history when he moved to the U.S. in 2010. It was here that he began working on his own family tree as well as that of his American wife. That research allowed him to gain a wealth of experience working with both U.S. and European genealogical documents and studying their best uses in researching family history.

Following 9 years of honing his genealogical research skills, Neil was proud to have earned a certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University in late 2019. Neil also took part in the research process for a Duke University study into the families of 19th Century UK Members of Parliament.

Link To or Reference This Page

We spent a lot of time downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!