A question to our U.K. Wrong Planetians

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Genealogy is one of my interests. A well-respected genealogical researcher and author friend of mine explained a few years ago that citizens of the United Kingdom (especially those in Britain) consider genealogy to be "social climbing." In other words, genealogists who research specifically to find royal or noble ancestors.

Can anyone from the United Kingdom confirm or deny this idea?

I am surprised by it because I don't make distinctions between my ancestors based on social status. Sure, it is sorta-kinda helpful to mention an ancestor from a certain time in history in a conversation, but I don't see it as climbing.

My mother has been a keen genealogist for many years,but she does it only because she's genuinely interested in family history.I think that's the case for the majority,but that's not to say that they wouldn't be pleased if by some chance they found a link to royalty !
Apart from the many people who simply do it as a hobby,there does also exist a more professional element of genealogists who specifically deal with what are considered 'upper class' families,e.g. royalty,Lords and Ladies,high-ranking politicians etc.Details of these supposedly elite families are published in a book called 'Burke's Peerage'.This will be what your author friend is thinking of,an example of the 'class' system that still prevails in the UK to some extent.

I'm from Norway, not UK, but I think there can be something to it.

I once had a classmate who claimed that they had tracked their roots to one of the Norse kings. She seemed proud of it, and another one of my classmates seemed jealous and would say she had gotten so stuck up after discovering that and berated her for not shutting up about it.

I'm not all that into it myself. It would be interesting to know more about my ancestors, and not simply to find out if there was someone 'big' in my history, but to generally know who they were. But that said, if I did find out that I descended from a great name in history, I'm not gonna pretend I wouldn't find that really cool.

How odd. I didn't create this topic for this reason, but yesterday was the Global Family Reunion event ( http://www.globalfamilyreunion.com/ and http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8656 ... story.html ) in New York to promote genealogy and family history. How fun!