[Formendacil]

As threads go, this isn't such an old one to be relifting... but I do not recall reading it before and it turns out I have something to add.

Regarding the Hobbits and genealogy, my own experience leads me to make a connection to their large families. On my mother's side, she was one of nine children, her mother was one of fifteen and her father (my grandfather, who was also my grandmother's second cousin--they shared great-grandparents) was one of eight, and these numbers were not at all unusual in the area they grew up: a farming area in western Saskatchewan settled by interrelated families of the same ethnic background (in this case, Catholic Germans who'd been farming in Russia from the time of Catherine the Great until the Russian Revolution). So... not an un-Hobbitlike community.

And although far better records exist on the other side of the family for research, I have always associated genealogical interest with my maternal side, because that was something that was always a topic for conversation when visiting--and in true Hobbit fashion (think: mushrooms), it was something that we never seemed to tire of: who was who's kid and how were they related. I have second- and third-cousins (once or twice removed) and great-aunts who have taken the trouble to record a lot of this information, but it was rarely written down in my memories: Grandpa just knew that so-and-so was his cousin on his father's side and that this cousin was married to the Thems-its, and we had a connection to that family on through the OtherOnes (connections of both him and my grandmother).

In other words, this genealogical interest was necessary for keeping track of your relatives in a community full of large familes--and large families grow at an exponential rate. At only 38 grand-children on that side of my family, I can keep track of them all (my younger siblings can't). My mom could keep track of all 80 or so of hers, but it took dialogue with my grandparents to keep track of anyone more distantly related. I imagine, especially given the stability of Hobbit communities, which were not spread across four provinces as mine came to be (four farthings, maybe) would have found such information relevant on a far more regular basis. After all, Hobbits are a bit gossipy, and gossip, like soap operas, make so much more engaged entertainment if you know the backstory--in other words, the family history.