Why Genealogies?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Wow, Ibri, it does not allow me to give you a reputation right now, so let me say it just here that I find what you said here very well-thought and very well said, and I would agree with what you say here about both the Hobbits and the Númenoreans (or Men in general, with the kind of "wish to preserve immortality by setting their name into a part of something", either history or inscribing it into stone somewhere. Hey, do not - or did not, maybe? Not as much anymore nowadays? - humans actually do that always, trying to find themselves immortality as part of something that transcends them, a history of a noble family, or a history of a country, a history of a movement?). The only question here would be - how do the Elves fit into the picture? What role does genealogy play among their kind? Except for the status of e.g. inheriting the title of the King of Noldor, there seems not to be much point in that. So, for myself, I would say that the Elves, except for when it comes to inheriting such a title, would actually have little interest for the genealogy themselves, neither of their own (since they could as well just remember it anyway, who is whose cousin, with their long lifespan, even if it had any high importance which I somehow doubt) nor of any other peoples (simply as, said with Lindir, "they have more important matters on their hands"). Maybe with the slight exception of following the lineage of Lúthien, which, however, was just a single and special case. But otherwise, probably just this High King of Noldor heritage and such.
Anyway I still think it is kind of weird for the Elves to have any hierarchy of nobility (an inherited one, the more) in their society at all. But that would be for a different topic.