Ancestral tourism: at the intersection of roots journeys and genealogy research

Abstract

Ancestral tourism is a popular activity for amateur genealogists interested in tracing their family lineage and experiencing affective connections with a tangible personal past. Nowadays, technologies such as mobile applications, digital archive deposits and online platforms for making virtual family trees facilitate the ancestral tourist experience. Ancestral tourism is also growing as a niche form of tourism at the destination-level with communities, regions and national destination management organizations alike seeking to attract tourists with relevant descendance through homecoming events and branding strategies. Tourism researchers have made considerable progress conceptualizing the ancestral tourist experience and its role in identity formation. However, there is still room to study the performative and narrative work shaping the ancestral tourist experience. I suggest that further research should investigate the role of local genealogists, family members, and community-members in the co-production of this tourist experience. Furthermore, I propose that tourism research can enliven the conceptualization of genealogy. Genealogy is not just about past histories of relatedness on a family tree, but rather a movement along a way of life that enables people to expand their participation in a lifeworld. As amateur genealogists expand their realms of performance and social networks, they unavoidably endow places with new meanings and materiality. Tourism geographers should thus continue exploring the place-making power of ancestral tourism.