Yes, that's a good way to shut a questioner up; BUT I would have said that there were problems in my present life whose solution might be helped by my knowing more about how and why they arose.

My understanding now is, that "past lives" and "ancestral lives" are the same - we do not really re-incarnate as a consciousness having a string of lives; yet all those lives are in fact "connected" to us by the fact that our direct lineage ancestors lived them, and that we are the present-day extension of all our ancestors. This means that the records are there in our auric fields AND our body-substance as DNA and cellular memory, which is why we have these otherwise inexplicable experiences.... its all ancestral skills and ancestral karma coming up for another try at resolving it.

Now, that being so, one would think that knowing what the karma was would help us make a balance for it; and knowing that such and such a skill existed among our ancestors could help us recover and use it. And these ideas are correct! In fact, most people (I believe) are here embodied on Earth at this time in history to enable them to release their ancestral load of karma, and to develop more the potentials that are there from "past lives". So of course you have to know what its all about - as the best way to release karma without getting overwhelmed by it is to find out what it was and understand the lesson that it points up - and release it without having to experience it!

To do this, you are helped enormously by knowing these records; and it IS possible to know them. You simply have to learn how to test your truth (for instance by a kinesthetic testing method such as muscle-testing or pendulum) and when you're confident in doing that, make like a detective, and start asking the right questions. Of course you have also to protect yourself psychically, be grounded, ask your Higher Self and angels to help, etc., etc., but it is quite possible to do this, and is to be encouraged for those who are interested in making the best use of their embodiment here, in my humble opinion.