Anything's boring if executed poorly. "My parents died, and I grew up alone" isn't inspiring, but neither is "I lived happily at home until I left".
I think that making a backstory complex enough to be about more than just "I'm an orphan" or "An event happened" will keep you from having something uninteresting solely because of a single element you use. After all, in a well-rounded history, would you say it's all boring and pointless because they share one background detail with poorly written characters?