It also states that genealogy is the study of pedigrees. When you check any long pedigree, you will find that by the time you get back to the period around 1375 AD, roughly twenty generations of your ancestry have passed. In that twentieth generation you have well over one million direct ancestors and in the period from that generation to today you will have another million ancestors. Among those ancestors there are many common ancestors. However, you are probably no less than 32nd cousin to anyone else.
Genealogy is the basic part of family history.
It gives you the names, dates and places. Family history fills out the genealogy. It gives flesh to the bare bones. It is the anecdotal history of the family. Tante Ali and her sister Aagje supplied my brother John with enough information to get started on the Hofstee family tree.