Urbanization and family roots

Family structure, parenting style, the family relationship among brothers, sisters and cousins have changed dramatically. This change is causing the gap, the distance among family and relatives,  and loneliness in the urban society.  Cases of depression and suicide are increasing in countries like India, China, Malaysia, where the urban population has grown faster.

Few decades back, villages used to have few hundreds of homes, everyone was known to each other, everyone was sharing moments of joy and sorrow with each other’s family.  Elders had records of each family’s ancestry of at least five to seven generations.

Family Urbanization

Then came the urbanization. As per UN report (May 2018) 55% population is leaving in urban area, which is estimated to grow to 68% in 2050. World urban population has grown by 5 times from 1950 to 2018, this large migration has  caused a vast gap in family root and their new generations.  Information about family roots are diluted over time. A teenager, whose parents are 2nd generation of migrant in the city, has probably no information about his ancestry, he or she would know maximum 2-3 generations of his ancestry.

There are ways to reduce the chances of depression and loneliness; we should be connected to family roots and discuss our problem with family and relatives. Share family values, moments and albums in family, connect and meet them on family events and always remember the common roots.  Collect and save family gems, memories, albums and records, feel proud of family roots and stay blessed on myfamilygems.com.

Family history and diseases

Knowing and recording family medical history can be a clue to your early risk assessment of disease. Families have common genes; parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncle, nephew, niece, cousins, at least 3 generations of family medical records are very important and gives a clue of medical condition and risk of disease in the family.

The inherited gene from mother and father caused heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses, other additional reasons could be a complex interaction of your diet, and other factors in your environment throughout your life. Study suggests that children inherit four times as many new mutations from their fathers than their mothers, according to research that suggests faults in the men’s DNA are a driver for rare childhood diseases. So disease from father side has more chance to be passed on to their kids. Below are common genetic disorders which are pron to take place in family if some of the family members has suffered from same disease in past generations.

Heart disease,
High blood pressure,
certain cancers,
And diabetes

It is important for healthcare professional to understand and notice the pattern of the disorders among family members. Once the pattern is identified, it is easier to determine if an individual in the family or future generations would be at risk of developing any particular disorder.

One thing is important to understand the difference between normal disorder and mutation.  Normal genetic disorder gives a higher probability of genetic disorder in family but a mutation is one in million cases and not carried in family genetically.

If someone knows the family history of disorders, he or she can take proper precautions at early stage to avoid or minimize that risk.  For example if a person has a family history of high blood pressure, or heart diseases,  he starts avoiding fatty food, takes in more fibers and does more physical activities; these actions positively reduces the risk of high blood pressure. If a family has a history of certain type of cancer, healthcare professionals advise the family members to undergo frequent screening for cancer, it helps to detect the cancer at early stage and  possible treatment which is having good chance of success at early stage.

How to know family history of your own?

Talk to relative about their health.

Go back to root and trace medical history, disease.

Collect information of past generation, reason of death, medical history etc.

You may not know, some of your relatives might have saved their history on myfamilygems.