People want to know where they came from but they also want to know where they could have gone

Family history constantly goes back to the future, mapping the distances that grow between the branches, asking why some flourish and others wither – historical questions which are always more than a matter of individual character. People want to know where they came from but they also want to know where they could have gone and why their branch of the family did not go there.

A. Light, Common People: The History of An English Family (2014), loc. 1,680