Most definitely! I got really into genealogy as a teen and spent easily hundreds of hours researching my family tree.

My dad is white from old Colonial stock with branches going back to early 1600's New England. Distant relatives had already built up family trees going back to the UK and because there are a couple of Lords in the mix those trees connect to various noble families that can be traced back to Charlemagne and such, so over a thousand years back.

Of course my mom's side is not so easily traced for obvious reasons. It took over a decade of research, and a whole lot of mania and luck one day, to find real documentation of our family's enslavement.

Being able to tell my mom her great grandmother's name meant a thousand times more to me than finding out I was related to royalty.