Ancestor Appreciation Day: Date, History, Importance & Facts

When is Ancestor Appreciation Day

Ancestor Appreciation Day is celebrated on September 27th to spend a day to find the heritage of your family traced back to fit into an original ethnic group.

Ancestor Appreciation Day: A Deep Dive into Ancestors Day

"From our ancestors, comes our names from our virtues and our honor"

How many of you are unaware of your ancestral names? Have you ever sat down beside your parents and asked about your ancestors and their history? Have you heard your parents telling you, your great great grandfather was a fighter? Don’t all these stories lighten you up?

Ancestor Appreciation Day

All Information related to the Ancestors Day Event, Date, Day, Significance & Observed countries is given below.

Significance of Ancestor Appreciation Day 

• Tracing one's genealogy is a very old practice. 
• In ancient times, knowing one's genealogy was just as important as choosing the right partner for marriage. 
• In fact, both efforts were closely related, in that people now began to marry people they were not related to. 
• Since then, many families have made it a duty to build a family tree that stretches back to many previous generations. 
• But people don't do this just to avoid closely related marriages. 
• The concept of ancestry is very important to one's identity as it gives you a foundation for self-expression. 
• But how can we spread what we know and love about our ancestors to our families? What makes them feel special about this day? How can we help our families celebrate Ancestors Day? 
• We all joke about the stereotypical eye family members do when mentioning family history, so what can you do to turn that indifference into a genuine interest? 
• Ask all these questions to yourselves. Brainstorm and end up with great answers.
• The love and respect we cherish for both the living and the dead are the foundation of strong families and caring communities, and ultimately they are what binds us together as a society. 
• Fortunately, we have got a chance to think about our ancestors, know them and appreciate them. We have a special day to celebrate our ancestors. 

Purpose of Ancestor Appreciation Day 

• Every year September 27th is celebrated as Ancestors Day.
• The date provides ample time for participants to honor their deceased relatives and recognize the cyclical nature of life. 
• Our ancestor’s efforts and the wisdom of the elders are remembered on this day.
• The Internet can be a great resource when it comes to researching genealogy, and several online resources will help you find records of your family's history, 
• learn about your ancestors and their way of life, and even get details to create a family tree. 
• From time ancient, people have experienced feelings of warm attachment not only to parents, siblings, and close relatives but also to the generations of relatives who have come before us. 

History of Ancestor Appreciation Day

• It is believed that demised relatives wait at the pagodas for their loved ones to return to them. 
• The word Pchum means “meeting/gathering, whereas Ben means “a ball of something” like rice, meat, etc… 
• During these days people offer food, and flowers to their ancestors and worship. 
• Many people believe that their actions on Earth determine their appearance as a ghost after death. 
• By praying and offering food during Pchum Ben, the family helps their ancestors get a better life and keeps their ancestors from getting angry and cursing them. 
• Whether big or nuclear, every family is asked to make use of the wonderful day.

Importance of Ancestor Appreciation Day 

• Who doesn’t love to hear stories; everyone loves to hear. 
• Sometimes we get mesmerized by the stories and think how great where our ancestors were and start to empathize.
• Every time our families expand, new achievements are made by our family members. These are the aspects that should be included in a family file.
• When you first started researching your family history, you probably started with a basic family tree - online or offline right? 
• All information has been populated using a tree (or chart) and is pretty much quite simple; you just fill in your ancestors' names, dates, and places of birth, marriage, and death information... and then you move on to the next generation.
• Once you start that deep dive into the existence of our ancestors, there are plenty of unknown holes you could lose yourself in. 
• Just think - how many random bits of information about you are there in the universe today? 
• Of course, living in the digital age is different than in the 19th century, but there are still many titbits to discover about a great-great-grandmother.

Interesting Facts about Ancestor Appreciation Day

1. It was found that our ancestors who lived 1000 years ago never had a family name. 

• For example, Surnames for people from Britain only became common after William the Conqueror's invasion in 1066, which brought new forms of government and methods of documentation. 
• Before that, people in Britain only had a first name unless they were from the ruling class where the surname was used to describe the family more like an organization. 
• When the Middle Ages started in 1066, it soon became mandatory to choose a surname for your family, but people didn't really know how to choose a surname, leading people to call themselves after their profession – Finding it very interesting right?

2. Burst the myth of evolution from Apes

• Who said we had evolved from Apes, of course, all the so-called theories made us believe that we have evolved from ape-like ancestor species that left Africa about 2 million years ago. The reason scientists haven't found the missing evolutionary link between humans and apes is that there isn't one. 
• Even though we share over 90% of our DNA with chimpanzees, we didn't evolve from the same ancestor on two different pathways, but instead came from a Neanderthal-type species with ape-like features, leading to the misunderstanding.

3. All about copper age

• We all know that copper is the first age; but do you know that copper was not the first metal to be discovered? 
• Copper was discovered around 9000 BC. and marked the beginning of the first metal age for mankind, but it was not the first metal they found. 
• The problem with smelting metal is reaching a temperature high enough to extract it from the ore, something they did by making big fires and primitive smelters. 
• Iron has a temperature too high to melt a bonfire, but copper can be melted in a regular fire, especially if coal is added. 
• Before people started making smelters to mass-produce copper, there were two other metals they discovered beforehand that could be easily melted in the tiniest of fires, and those were tin and lead. 
• The problem with these two metals is that they are both very soft and useless to make your own, making the copper age the first official metal age because it was the first metal that was actually usable.

4. Do you know our ancestors were much shorter than us

• According to new research, our ancient ancestors went through a long and lean phase about 1.5 million years ago. 
• The early humans hunted in African savannas, making them tall and slender after leaving woodland habitats. 
• Early humans grew tall and thin 1.5 million years ago to survive outside the forest. 
• For most of hominin evolution, our ancestors got heavier as they got bigger. 
• What they discovered was that at one point human ancestors grew about 10 centimeters in height and grew taller and slimmer than their predecessors.

5. Solid rock fact

• One harsh fact about ancestors is that you and I (i.e.) each and every person share two biological parents. 
• So, this means two people share common ancestors, then we can see that if we go back far enough in time, all of us living in the world today should have at least some common ancestors. Sounds crazy right?

Conclusion

All these practices will help us have a better understanding of our ancestors. Learning and knowing something new every day will keep us growing. Different parts of countries celebrate this day in many ways and on different dates.

Some celebrate it as Ancestors appreciation day which is on the 27th of September.Whatever may be the day, keep your work aside and spend time with your family, gather a lot more information, and be proud that you have known some interesting facts for the day. Celebrate the day with your family and cherish all the moments.