My Ancestor From Over 5000 Years Ago

One day last year, my daughter came home from school a bit disheartened. There had apparently been a project assigned that day that had everyone in her class all excited. There had been much talk, sharing and discussion with everyone having a lot to contribute.

The class project was “Trace your genealogy. Find out your earliest ancestors, who they were and what they did. Share with the class something interesting about the earliest ancestors you can find.”

 A lot of families around in Alex are long timers. Many know their first settler ancestors. They still live on or have lands and farms from those days. Many know a bit more from their ancestors’ European days. Most of the kids in my daughter’s class had looked at different websites on the internet (these kids cannot imagine a world without Google) if they did not already have family records. They could have it all at their fingertips in seconds. There are national registries around Australia holding records of migrants and a wealth of historic detail and information. Most kids had something to share about an interesting ancestor or two. Some had information about specific ancestors from about 100-200 years ago. Many kids found that they had some traits and habits similar to their ancestors. My kid was stumped, stuck and felt particularly bad. She could not help it! She felt I could not help her, nobody could. Her contribution was simple – “My parents came to Australia, the year before I was born.” She did know which ancient ancestor she took after in some of her characteristics. She was wondering who our illustrious ancestors were that she could talk about.

                We could not go on to local registries and find anything. We relied on family knowledge and memories from India. I remember one of my great-grandfathers had put in some effort at tracing some of his ancestors from the northern and western parts of India, while his own family lived in the south for many generations.  One of my grandfathers had moved around a bit in the south of India and the other had not moved much. My father had moved all around India. I had lived around India, moved to the US, lived there ten years, returned to India and then migrated to Australia. We had lost close contact with many relatives and friends. It is perhaps ironic that because of the Internet and technology we had actually re-connected with many friends and family – mostly those that were young or those who were technology savvy.

                Sure, there are very nosy ‘social’  websites that ask for all kinds of personal  details, can figure out relationships and draw up a family tree. You can find out a lot about yourself if you follow the connections. I tend to be wary of these as these seem to have no regard for privacy. Anyway, I tried to tell my daughter, to the best of my recollections, details about her great-great-great grandparents. We did not have specific details and records. My recollections helped a bit but still did not stretch to 200 years. My daughter wanted something spectacular, something worth mentioning, worth sharing, some detail about someone who lived much longer ago. She wanted to be able to share something that will make all her classmates look up and take notice. Then suddenly, it struck me!

“How would you like to know about a famous ancestor of yours from over 5000 years ago?” I asked my daughter.

“You really mean you know a real name from 5000 years ago?” she asked sounding a little sceptical.

“Yes, I can tell you a real name and a fair amount of details about him as well,” I replied.

 “Tell me, Dad,” said my little one, looking at me with those trusting eyes, hope and a bit of excitement shining in them. I could not let her down, I could not kid her.

“Here it is …,” I began with a smile. I had hit upon something so obvious to most Indian families of Hindu background.

Here it is… Most Hindus trace their lineage, direct and unbroken, from about 49 male ancestors. Each line is called a “Gothra” (Gothram in Sanskrit).

My family traces it from a sage called ‘Bharadwaja’, who was apparently one of the contributors to the compilation of the Vedas.

“How can you know we are descended from Bharadwaja?” asked my daughter. I explained.

According to cultural practice, people of the same Gothra should not marry and have kids. This was considered unwise. It has its basis in the desire to prevent inbreeding and expression of recessive tendencies in genes. So the knowledge of the family Gothra has been kept alive and aware all these years and generations.

The Gothra of a person was passed on from the father, not the mother. While in ignorance many initially attributed this to an apparent preference for males, its real basis is in the science of genetics. Every cell of a human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, which contains genes in them.  One in each pair is from each of our parents.  There is a pair of chromosomes that determines our gender. If it is XX, the child is female and if it is XY, the child is male.  The male child has to get its Y- chromosome from its father only. The Y-chromosome is apparently shorter and more vulnerable to mutation and cannot correct defects or faults by what is called crossing over with its pair. It does not have an identical sized pair as other chromosomes have.  Apparently the Y-chromosome, which determines the gender, has been shrinking over many years of evolution and could in theory become too short or become extinct! If that happens, we would not have males anymore! To preserve the length of the Y-chromosome and its resiliency, we are advised to marry and have children with partners from different Gothras.

There are many temples around India that maintain registries of families and their descendants, based on this system for many thousands of years. It is possible to say with confidence who one of the earliest male ancestors was.

And so, we read about the sage Bharadwaja in Indian mythology.  He was a foundling as a child, but some believe he was descended from another sage Angirasa, who also contributed to the Vedas.

He had well known descendants who were also named after him. One of them apparently very interested in learning and went to great efforts to prolong his life, only so that he could gain more knowledge. Until he gained the wisdom finally that there would always be more knowledge than anyone could possibly attain or use in a lifetime. A later Bharadwaja had a son who became an expert warrior featured in the Mahabharata.

                Now I had something that my daughter could use for her project. I noted that I had a strong desire to become a librarian and live long enough to read all the books I could find when I was a teenager. Even then I reckoned it would be a futile attempt. There were too many books, too little time. My family did tell me where they reckoned I got my love of wood from one of my closer ancestors.

My daughter wanted to know who all she got her nature from. I pointed out that while we have a lot of characteristics of our ancestors, it is sometimes a coincidence. While we are similar to our oldies, we are yet our own person, we have the will, we change, we choose and we have to be different, at least a bit different and that’s what makes us.

Now, that we are new immigrants to Australia and my daughter is a recent descendant, I told her we need to become the ‘illustrious’ ancestor for our future generations. We need to do something they will remember us by and talk about us someday else our descendant’s school project will not be very interesting. And then, a little girl or boy someday might feel a bit disappointed.

“So much to learn! So much to do, young lady!” I said.

Happily, my daughter got busy with her school project. I now have to start doing things to become illustrious myself!

Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2012

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