Ancestry.com - Meeting The Famous Characters In Our Family's Past

Who do you think you are? Is a series on the BBC which looks at famous people and delves into their ancestry.

The most notable episodes are: 

The comedian Josh Widdicombe whose ancestors are traced by to Tudor Nobility, and King Edward I of England (17/18 June 1239–7 July 1307)

Soap star Danny Dyer found on the BBC family history show he was related to Edward III (13 November 1312–21 June 1377)

Alexander Armstrong was descended from William the Conqueror (c.1028–9 September 1087)

It has also been established that:

Millions of people are related to Richard III

Research has shown that there are now "literally millions" of people alive today who are related to the immediate family of Richard III, a 15th-Century sovereign, belonging to the House of York. Richard of York, defeated at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry Tudor, who later ascended to the throne to become Henry VII, father of Henry VIII.

It was living descendants of one of his sisters that enabled researchers to use DNA to help identify the bones of Richard III found in Leicester. It was whilst working on a Government Project in Leicester that I discovered this fact. It's a miracle of modern science that we are now able to do this and accurately recreate our past.

So should we feel elevated by nobility in our past? What difference could it make to our lives today?

Generations are often like the pendulum of a clock. Whatever the parents are, the child is sometimes the opposite. Or, the child tries to outdo the parents and takes all sorts of risks to prove themselves better in some way.

Reading 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy showed me the dangers of elevating yourself because of your famous ancestors.

If you're not familiar with this literary work, here's a short synopsis. 

Tess of D'Urbervilles is regarded as Hardy's tragic masterpiece. It is a story of a country girl who is first presented as an innocent girl but turns into a tragic heroine. From Hardy's point of view, Tess is not responsible for what she has done. She is a victim of a series of misfortunes that slowly destroy her personality - Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

Imagine you have delved into your family tree and your ancestors; to your amazement you find that you're a descendant of a very famous person who was related to you. I have known people who have taken this information to inflate their own sense of importance and influence.

Great literature has often woven the stories of a hapless character, such as My Fair Lady, a film adapted from the 1956 Lerner and Loewe stage musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 stage play Pygmalion. 

The "Pygmalion effect" is a psychological phenomenon in which a person's performance depends on what others expect of them. The higher the expectations, the more they try to perform better. It is very similar to The Halo Effect.

What Is the Halo Effect?

The halo effect is also something referred to as the "physical attractiveness stereotype" and the "what is beautiful is also good" principle.

Physical appearance is often a major part of the halo effect. People who are considered attractive tend to be rated higher on other positive traits as well.

However, this effect doesn't just affect our perceptions of people based on their attractiveness. It can also encompass other traits as well. People who are sociable or kind, for example, may also be seen as more likable and intelligent. Family prominence also features and it has become 'fashionable' to be related to Royalty or a Celebrity in the past,

The Halo Effect makes it so that perceptions of one quality lead to biased judgments of other qualities.

The term itself uses the analogy of a halo to describe how it can affect perceptions. In religious art, a halo is often portrayed over a saint's head, bathing the individual in a heavenly light to show that that person is good.

When you see someone through the lens of the halo effect, you are seeing them cast in a similar light. That "halo" created by your perception of one characteristic covers them in the same way.

It's a good thing to see others in a positive light, no actually, it's a great thing. If you can forge friendships based on admiration and respect they may become your friends for life.

"Once I would not have believed this, but now I understand too well that there is in all of us, even the most pacific and composed, an enormous capacity for rage, asleep maybe but present nonetheless, waiting for the single thing that will uncage it. "― Anne D. LeClaire, The Halo Effect

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