There is something special about those times when records don’t simply stop but fade. Times long enough ago that identity was seen differently. A man is not known by two names but by one name and the place where he lived. When his child was born, all that was recorded was the date, his given name and the place. No mother. No name for the child. Not even the child’s gender, just the date, the place and the father.
In more recent times the wonder of genealogy often comes from reconstructing lives and resurrecting stories. Out at the edge of what is possible, the wonder comes from being able to see through the fog of time just well enough to know a single mysterious name. So many people who will never have their lives reconstructed stand out there at the limit. A vast multitude like the masked chorus of an ancient Greek play. We hear them as one because we cannot hear them separately.
Connections are there but they hang by a thread, tenuously.