I am an amateur genealogist, and have plotted family trees for a variety of people. It combines my interest in history with my eye for detail and research. You will find articles about my own family history elsewhere in this blog.
Before I start plotting a tree I ask people for the names and dates of their parents, grandparents and any other relatives they know of. Then I ask them for any family rumours and legends. Its interesting that although some of these legends can seem quite bizarre 70-80% of them turn up in the evidence and are more-or-less true.
What does this say about the veracity of the gospels? Well, just because the stories in the gospels appear to be fantastical we should not discount them. The gospels only tell snippets from the life of Jesus. As these were initially passed around by word of mouth, people were more interested in remembering the unusual things that happened. So in the written gospels it tends to be the more interesting and unusual aspects of Jesus life that are recorded. There are no records of his shopping trips or toenail trimming, although he must have done those things. The emphasis is on the unusual, and because these occurrences were unusual they were remembered, passed on and eventually written down.
