Ever wondered if you are related to royalty? Well, certainly in Europe, you probably are.
I can trace my father's line back to the 1500s. Everybody has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents and so on. Going back to the 1500s that means I needed over 8000 people to marry and have children. Going back just 10 more generations, way after Magna Carta, and I have over 16M ancestors, which is far greater than the whole UK population at that time!
Now I am sure some of my ancestors married distant relatives, so the number will be a bit less, but you get my point: if you go back far enough we are connected. If we go back to the time the Romans came to England certainly one of those is in my family tree.
This is humbling. Just think, we are only here now because those people had children. If just one had not, we would not be here now.
2 comments:
Hi Roger,
I heard somewhere that you are only ever 5 persons link away from anyone! I wonder how long before we all have our own DNA profile and can run a family tree check using that?
73 Ken G4APB
I've read that 220 million people are descended from Charlemagne. That's not a very exclusive group. Brigham Young University developed a tool that, once you're linked into the FamilySearch tree, tells you your famous relatives and the relationship to you.
It came in handy for my niece when she was touring Scotland with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. They were looking for some Scottish connections and she's James IV's 15th great grand daughter. That and some money will get her a soda at any McDonald's in the world.
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