My Family Tree - An interesting search

 Everyone has this wish to know about his ancestors - who were they? I too. In my quest to find my family tree, I could map my family tree roots to no longer than 5 generations starting from me. That is myself, father, grandfather, great grandfather and great great grandfather. My search ends here. I tried. I talked with relatives. I converse on this with my uncles; but to no anvil. 

Then a thought struck me. My great great grandfather lived during the British times. It could be the 18th century. That is my guess. By the 18th century Britishers were expanding their hold in Tamil Nadu, in fact the whole of India. Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was in British control. They, the Britisher, have just started dealing in the lucrative tea business. They have purchased plantations in Ceylon to plant tea. They required labourers in thousands in tea estates. My thoughts said, maybe one of my ancestors might have shifted to Ceylon for better opportunities.

There were other events that were going on in the 18th century. Slavery was abolished and was replaced by indentured labourer system. Maybe, my ancestors were forcibly taken as indentured labourers to work in far off British Colonies in West Indices, South Africa or Malaysia.  

When we are researching something we have to take into consideration many possibilities. The other possibility is they might have gone with the British Army as foot soldiers and have never returned back.  

Then there are other possibilities of them succumbing to (the then) dangerous diseases like tuberculosis, diarrhea, etc or like many who have gained fame in foreign lands but were reluctant to return back to their roots.

Whatever it may be, Is it worth to find our family tree roots or to stay in the present. Be happy with what we are now than to ponder endlessly on who our ancestors were. I go with Be happy with what we are now. 

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