Have had the opportunity do a lot of genealogical research on my family origins.

Can take most lines back to at least the early colonization of North America with Europeans.

On most of those, a trip to France, England, Scotland, wales, Ireland, would fill in the missing two to four generations would need to satisfy myself to the unbroken continuing lines of old families. Not going to happen. Universe demands my attention on other things.

Some lines, can trace back to BC. several thousand years.
What i kept finding, was my direct ancestors killing my other direct ancestors in battles, and sometimes in snake pits, and drawing and quartering.

I come from the four winds and the seven seas.

So to whom, do i owe my allegiance?

To myself. I alone own my actions in this life. The harm done to others without cause, dereliction of duty to Universe/humanity.

If i own my mistakes, and learn from them, i become a better father, husband, friend. I become a better human, therefore better to do the duty to universe i was sent to do.

If i vanquish pride, greed, lust for riches, lust for power, lust for control of all people, lust for harming others, in various ways, learn from my mistakes, i become better able to understand the vastness of universe, the speck that is humanity and the whole of our earth. The more one learns, the more ignorant one realizes one is.

Undue pride of family, country, ethnicity, culture,, stands in the way of becoming a better being. Undue pride does not mean you do not honor your ancestors, the good ones anyway. It means that you do not believe that you deserve special treatment because you were born in a certain place to certain people.

Most people going to do whatever they want no matter how many family/friends try to change their minds.

Comes down to it, only one person that you can force to make changes to make it a better world, and that is each of us individually changing ourselves for the better.

Now, it is my belief, that if each human, was worrying about keeping their own ass straight, improving each day, there would be no wars, no rapes, no robberies, no murders, and most probably, no taxes.

So each of us owes our allegiance to ourselves, on the path to become better beings.

John C Carleton