My impression is that many others, as they move deeper into middle age, feel the same. While there is still time they want to find out what evolutionary line they fit into. The Garter King of Arms and his colleagues have done good business responding to this impulse, and many coats of arms have been revived or claimed as a result. But more often individuals simply want to discover from whom and where they stem and whether it tells them something about themselves. If a heroic or romantic story is uncovered that is a bonus.
Surprises are likely to surface.
However, he found he had relations in France. Some of his 18th-century ancestors had been catholics. To escape the penal laws, one more enterprising than the rest had emigrated, not as one might expect to America, but to France. He was an expert in a then new technology connected with the manufacture of iron, which he was able to turn to profitable use in meeting Napoleon's demand for armaments. Having moved up in the world he foolishly returned to England to visit his relations and was promptly clapped into jail.