General Chat

From Bill Bryson: A short history of Nearly everything (I paraphrase!) 'If your 2 parents hadn't bonded just when they did-possibly to the nanosecond-you wouldn't be here. And if their parents hadn't bonded in a precisely timely manner, you wouldn't be here either. And if their parents hadn't done likewise, and their parents before them, and so on, obviously and indefinately, you wouldn't be here. Push backwards through time and these ancestral debts begin to add up. Go back just 8 generations and already there are over 250 people on whose timely couplings your existence depends. Continue further, to the time of Shakespeare and you have no fewer than 16,384 ancestors earnestly exchanging genetic material in a way that would, eventually and miraculously, result in you. At 20 generations ago the number of people procreating on your behalf has risen to 1,048,576.If you go back 64 generations, to the time of the Romans, the number has risen to approximately 1 million trillion, which is several thousand times the total number of people who have ever lived. Clearly something has gone wrong with our maths here. The answer is, that you line is not pure. You couldn't be here without a little incest- actually quite a lot of incest-albeit at a genetically discreet remove. With so many millions of ancestors in your background, there will have been many occasions when a relative from your mother's side of the family procreated with some distant cousin from your fathers side of the ledger. In fact, if you are in partnership with someone of your own race and country, the chances are excellent that you are at some level related' So, cousins, if we all work really hard and get back that far on our trees, we will ALL be able to link trees!! Love Steph x

Really interesting - but suddenly I don't think that I can afford Xmas! :-))

Too true. It was a couple of months ago that I believe one of the tabloid newspapers carried a message that if you go back something like twenty generations you have thirty million ancestors. Twenty generations back the entire population of the UK was less than eight million, so it doesn't take much grey matter to work out that some ancestors must be common.

To put the basics: There is one of you 2 parents 4 Grandparents 8 G x 1 Grandparents 16 G x 2 Grandparents 32 G x 3 Grandparents 64 G x 4 Grandparents 128 G x 5 Grandparents 256 G x 6 Grandparents and thats in about 200 years - a lot of researching to do!

Thank goodness civil registration didn't come in till 1837. That lot, 510, at 8.50 per would come to 4335.00 pounds, just for birth certs. That's without all the aunts and uncles and cousins etc etc.

I think we are all related if you go back far enough. My wife and i use the same family tree and she has a connection on my line three times already with different surnames each time. George

I think thats fantastic I have always felt that you were all family welcome to my world nobody need ever be lonely love to you all sandra

Indigenous population in the time of Elizabeth 1st was about 3 million during the next 500 years it rose to 57 million, swelled by only a few thousand immigrants up to WW2 A bit of simple arithmetic says something. I read in a genealogical book that if someone has no proved aristocratic connection in the last couple of hundred years and claims a line back to William the Conqueror, they may safely be called a liar. Met a German, whilst on holiday, who assured me that we are all inbred.