Quote

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

— Ralph Ellison

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We understand ourselves best and are best understood by others through the persons who came nearest to us in our earliest years.

— Lucy Larcom

For me, ancestry is just one thing that connects us to people, and feeling connected to other people is generally a good thing, as long as one kind of connection does not have primacy over all the others. Heredity, race and nationhood are not the best criteria by which to judge our fellow humans.

— Jeremy Hardy

If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA.

— Henry Louis Gates

If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA. I think it's fascinating.

— Henry Louis Gates

Everyone is related to Africa; everyone comes from Africa. We are all distant relatives.

— Damian Marley

The family is inclusive of not just your genetic family, but the people that you meet along the way.

— Jane Seymour

It's funny, you know, growing up, you are always introduced to people as your uncle this or your aunt that or your cousin this. By the time I was in my 20s, I had no idea who I actually was or wasn't related to. It's kind of a running joke in the family.

— Johnny Iuzzini

People like to trace their ancestry.

— Richard Dawkins

The family you come from isn't as important as the family you're going to have.

— Ring Lardner

✗Opposing Perspectives

When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.

— Alex Haley