Perception of Turks and Common Ancestor in Kazakh Genealogy

The chart showing all the members of the genealogy, starting from the farthest ancestor of a person or family to him, is defined as the genealogy. These genealogies, called “Şejire” (шежіре) in Kazakh Turkish, are an important genre in Kazakh oral literature, and have long been sung by representatives of oral utterance tradition such as aqyn and zhyrau in oral tradition and delivered to the present day, and today they have been substantially in written form. Genealogies, although have undergone major changes when being verbally transmitted from generation to generation, are one of the most important sources of oral history. So much so that we learn many historical personalities and events, Oghuz Khan for the beginning, which is of great importance in Turkish history, from the so-called “Oghuznāma”. Kazakh genealogy is seen to be particularly influenced by the works of Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmens) by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan and Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles) by Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadanī. In this article, we will focus on the genealogy tradition of Kazakh Turks and the perception of Turks in genealogies linking the Kazakhs to the Turkish origin and the individuals considered common among Turks will be tried to be pointed out.