Editorial

摘要

Many cultures have followed forms of ancestor worship and sometimes it almost seems that Western society is reviving the ancient practice. Fuelled by television programmes featuring celebrities and facilitated by an explosion of internet sites that allow trawling through registers, censuses and the like without having to set foot in dusty record offices, amateur genealogy is booming. Everyone, it seems, is exploring their family tree, trying to trace back their roots and perhaps hoping to turn up something that will provide a little colour or notoriety to enliven a humdrum twenty-first century existence.