"Everyone of European Ancestry is Descended From Charlemagne"?
D. Spencer Hines
Readers will find this piece at:
http://www.oz.net/~lee/Genealogy/charlemagne.html
D. Spencer Hines
It was reportedly written by:
John M. (Jack) Lee
Professor of Mathematics
Graduate Program Coordinator
University of Washington
Department of Mathematics
C-546 Padelford Hall
Box 354350
Seattle, Washington 98195-4350
USA
Phone: (206) 543-1735
Fax: (206) 543-0397
E-mail: l...@math.washington.edu
Whose Home Page is at:
http://www.math.washington.edu/~lee/
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
Fortem Posce Animum
--
As I was researching my Lee ancestral line back into the middle ages,
I was excited to find that I am apparently a direct descendant of
Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. As I dug deeper, I found at
least three separate lines of descent from him to me, and I saw more
and more genealogical sites on the Web that claimed similar descent.
This started me thinking about how likely it is that I, or anyone for
that matter, might be descended from a particular person that far
back. As a mathematician (though not by any means a probabilist), I
figured I ought to be able to come up with at least a rough estimate
of the probability. My conclusion, which was surprising (to me at
least), is that there is virtually no chance that anyone of European
ancestry is not directly descended from Charlemagne.
Here's my reasoning. Charlemagne was approximately 40 generations back
from the present day. Each person has 2 parents, 2^ 2 = 4
grandparents, 2^ 3 = 8 great-grandparents, ... and 2^ 40, or
approximately 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion), 40th-generation
ancestors, which means half a trillion male ancestors. Of course,
since the entire male population of Europe at the time of Charlemagne
was only about 15 million, these half trillion ancestors cannot all
have been different men -- obviously there has been a lot of
cross-breeding, and many of our ancestral lines cross and re-cross,
eventually ending up at the same person. Let's assume that each of my
40th-generation male ancestors is a randomly-chosen man from
eighth-century Europe (this is not really valid, but more on that
below). Choosing any one such ancestor, say my father's father's ...
father's father, the probability that that particular person is
Charlemagne is one in 15 million. Pretty small. To put it another way,
the probability that any particular ancestor was not Charlemagne is
1 - 1/15,000,000, or approximately 0.999999933
But now consider the probability that none of my 40th-generation
ancestors is Charlemagne. For that to happen, every one of my half
trillion male ancestors has to not be Charlemagne, which would be an
amazing coincidence. To see how amazing, let's compute the
probability. Assuming all of these various not-being-Charlemagne
occurrences are independent of each other (more on this below), the
laws of probability state that the probability of all these events
occurring simultaneously is obtained by multiplying together their
individual probabilities:
(0.999999933)·(0.999999933)·...·(0.999999933) = (0.999999933)^
500,000,000,000.
This turns out to be an incredibly small number: about one chance in
10^ 15,000. That's a one with 15,000 zeroes after it, a number that's
too big even to display in a browser window. This is way more than the
number of atoms in the universe (which is estimated to be about 10^
80). Therefore, if this analysis is even remotely close to correct,
it's virtually impossible that Charlemagne is not among my direct
ancestors.
Of course, there are a few sources of errors in this analysis, so
there are various corrections one could make that might yield a more
accurate estimate. Most obviously, one's ancestors are not in fact
randomly chosen people from eighth-century Europe. For example, anyone
who had no children, or no grandchildren, cannot be an ancestor of
someone living now. (Charlemagne has well-documented descendants down
to the present day.) More generally, wealthy people survived at a far
higher rate than the rest of the population, and so were much more
likely to produce descendants - thus one's ancestors are more likely
to be found among the relatively small population of royalty and
nobility, including Charlemagne. You might think of other, smaller,
corrections, such as the fact that the probabilities of different
ancestors being Charlemagne are not really independent: for example,
if my father's ... father's father was Charlemagne's brother, then the
probability that my father's ... mother's father was Charlemagne
himself is very small. And, of course, some of my ancestors came from
outside of Europe. But I believe these effects cannot change the fact
that the probability we're talking about is so tiny as to be zero for
all practical purposes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Lee/Weizenbaum Genealogy Lee/Weizenbaum Home l...@oz.net
http://www.oz.net/~lee/Genealogy/charlemagne.html
--
D. Spencer Hines --- "She [Hillary Rodham Clinton] loves eunuch geek
men." [CP]; "Like Who?" [The Women's Quarterly]; "Oh my God, look at
them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes --- they all
look alike. They are all weird Ichabod Crane men, all high IQ men who
have no natural virility, okay? It's really weird. She loves to have
her little cabals with them. And the other one --- the lawyer David
Kendall --- they're all alike, and they all bond with her. They're all
joined at the hip with her! "Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia is a culture critic,
libertarian feminist, and columnist for the Internet magazine _Salon_.
She is also the author of four books including _Sexual Personae: Art
and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American
Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_." _The Women's Quarterly_, Spring
1999, Number 19.
Graham Milne
be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the time.
Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats. There
was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
(mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds of
years. The Marquis de Ruvigny states that of some 50,000 descendants he
identified of Edward III only a handful, literally a handful, were of the
working class. To my knowledge, he is the only person who has ever
underatken to actually trace the living descendants of an early monarch, as
opposed to the infinite number of people who put forward stupid theories
based on some sort of specious mathematical reasoning. The reality of the
situation is that there are a relatively small number of people with huge
numbers of descents from Charlemagne, the rest have none at all. As an
example, I have a database of about 4000 people, some 3500 of which are my
ancestors. There are some 800 descendants of Charlemagne in this database,
who have some180,000 lines of descent from him. I have, at the moment, 4,643
lines of descent from Chalremagme but I am willing to bet that the real
number is at least 10 (and possibly 100) times that number. I would guess
that someone like the Prince of Wales has many millions of lines of descent
from Charlemagne. Most people have none at all.
Rgds,
Graham
D. Spencer Hines <D._Spence...@aya.yale.edu> wrote in message
news:7mt6sd$s09$1...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net...
Dan Goodman
Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems to
>be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the time.
>Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
>purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats.
You seem to be taking it for granted that no children have ever been
conceived outside marriage.
If this has consistently been true for Europe, my knowledge of European
history is weaker than I thought.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Chris Dickinson
"
<The article is, of course, complete rubbish.
"
Which indeed it was.
"
<the aristocracy were, to all intents and
<purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other
aristocrats. There
<was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the
social scale
<(mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many,
many hundreds of
<years. The Marquis de Ruvigny states that of some 50,000
descendants <he identified of Edward III only a handful,
literally a handful, were of the
<working class.
"
Unfortunately, your arguments are equally invalid.
There are three basic problems with what you say. The first,
as Dan Goodman has already commented, is that illegitimacy
defies social class. The second is that social class is
generally not as clearly defined as you seem to think. The
third is methodological .... the descendants of Charlemagne
who are likely to have recorded pedigrees are likely to be
of a class that gets recorded.
Chris
Brian M. Scott
[snips & reformatting]
> Graham Milne writes :
> >The article is, of course, complete rubbish.
> Which indeed it was.
> >the aristocracy were, to all intents and
> >purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other
> >aristocrats.
> Unfortunately, your arguments are equally invalid.
> There are three basic problems with what you say. The first,
> as Dan Goodman has already commented, is that illegitimacy
> defies social class. The second is that social class is
> generally not as clearly defined as you seem to think. The
> third is methodological .... the descendants of Charlemagne
> who are likely to have recorded pedigrees are likely to be
> of a class that gets recorded.
Agreed on all counts. However, it does seem likely that the effect
noted by GM is strong enough by itself to vitiate the calculation in the
article: Lee's assumption of independence is absurd.
Brian M. Scott
Leslie Mahler
>The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here
seems to
>be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the
time.
>Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents
and
>purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats.
There
>was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
>(mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds
of
>years.
---- Heres an example that goes against this statement:
Henry Clifford, member of parliament, descendant of King Edward III
see The Complete Peerage and his entry in the Dictionary of National
Biography
married to Anne Saint John, a cousin of King Henry VII
|
their daughter, Anne Clifford was married secondly to Ralph Melford
esquire, died 1546 of Arnold, Nottingham
|
their son Thomas Melford gent of Arnold, Nottingham, died 1602
|
his daughter Mary Melford, married in 1585 to Humphrey Need, husbandman
So there you have a descent from a member of Parliament down to a
husbandman in a just a few generations.
And there are probably many other examples of a similar nature. I only
mentioned this one because I descend
from it.
>The Marquis de Ruvigny states that of some 50,000 descendants he
>identified of Edward III only a handful, literally a handful, were of
the
>working class. To my knowledge, he is the only person who has ever
>underatken to actually trace the living descendants of an early
monarch, as
>opposed to the infinite number of people who put forward stupid
theories
>based on some sort of specious mathematical reasoning.
A better to work to consult would be Faris' Plantagenet Descent of
American Colonists.
There are thousands of people who descent from these colonists, who have
documented
descents from royalty, a number of them being from Edward III.
>The reality of the
>situation is that there are a relatively small number of people with
huge
>numbers of descents from Charlemagne, the rest have none at all. As an
>example, I have a database of about 4000 people, some 3500 of which are
my
>ancestors. There are some 800 descendants of Charlemagne in this
database,
>who have some180,000 lines of descent from him. I have, at the moment,
4,643
>lines of descent from Chalremagme but I am willing to bet that the real
>number is at least 10 (and possibly 100) times that number. I would
guess
>that someone like the Prince of Wales has many millions of lines of
descent
>from Charlemagne. Most people have none at all.
I know that a number of people who subscribe to this group have descents
from Charlemagne - most of them are
probably valid.
Also, I have gentry descents in France, Belgium and Sweden, besides the
abovementioned instance
from England. I wouldnt be surprised if all of those gentry descents go
back to Charlemagne. That doesnt
take in the fact that Im 1/4 Southeast Asian, for which there are not a
lot of good records.
So, am I just really lucky to have such descents, or is this
commonplace?
Leslie
Paul J Gans
>The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems to
>be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the time.
>Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
>purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats. There
>was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
>(mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds of
>years. The Marquis de Ruvigny states that of some 50,000 descendants he
>identified of Edward III only a handful, literally a handful, were of the
>working class. To my knowledge, he is the only person who has ever
>underatken to actually trace the living descendants of an early monarch, as
>opposed to the infinite number of people who put forward stupid theories
>based on some sort of specious mathematical reasoning. The reality of the
>situation is that there are a relatively small number of people with huge
>numbers of descents from Charlemagne, the rest have none at all. As an
>example, I have a database of about 4000 people, some 3500 of which are my
>ancestors. There are some 800 descendants of Charlemagne in this database,
>who have some180,000 lines of descent from him. I have, at the moment, 4,643
>lines of descent from Chalremagme but I am willing to bet that the real
>number is at least 10 (and possibly 100) times that number. I would guess
>that someone like the Prince of Wales has many millions of lines of descent
>from Charlemagne. Most people have none at all.
>Rgds,
>Graham
Let me add my two cents to this. The idea of a "noble"
or "aristocratic class" whose ancestry and descent is
somehow "elite" is itself not supportable.
It is worthy of note that the definition of nobility
is (or I should say was) fairly plastic in the Middle Ages.
This is discussed in depth by Constance Bouchard in _Strong
of Body, Brave & Noble_, subtitled "Chivalry & Society in
Medieval France", Cornell, 1998. See especially chapter 3.
Bouchard notes that at least until the 13th century all
one needed was one noble antecedent in order to be
considered noble. She also notes that there was a distinct
lack of marriage partners for women of the nobility,
primarily for two reasons: male children of the nobility
could not marry until they had lands of their own (and thus
often had to wait until the death of their father). Thus
a family with three sons might have only one who could
marry. The other reason was the continual syphoning off
of males into the church, particularly monasteries.
This resulted in, as Bouchard says: "As a result men could
reasonably hope to marry women of higher social standing
than their own..." (p 90) She goes on: "Sometimes a
castellan might tie his knights to him more tightly by making
them his sons-in-law as well as his sworn warriors and vassals.
Because of such marriages, nobles who could boast of glorious
noble ancestors also had ancestors whose nobility and
glory were at best dubious." (p 90).
And later: "By the thirteenth century, even while nobles
were desperately trying to reestablish the rapidly shrinking
gap between the aristocracy and everyone else, knights
daughters might indeed find it expedient to marry young
men of the wealthy urban classes." (p 91)
There is much more, which I cannot hope to reproduce in
a reasonably sized posting.
The result of this is that one need not look for "working
class" desendants of the nobility. Many of the later
nobility were themselves directly descended from such
a class. The son of a wealthy burger who married a
knight's daughter and saw his son marry the daughter
of a castellan -- whose son in turn married even further
up, might possibly end in few generations being the
ancestor of a count or duke.
And during this entire process female descendents were
again marrying down. The result being that by the
time the "rules" changed and hardened in the 13th
century, the family trees of the nobility were suffused
with the "working class" members.
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Michael L. Siemon
<lma...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
+ So, am I just really lucky to have such descents, or is this
+ commonplace?
It is commonplace, the snobbery of certain twits to the
contrary notwithstanding.
Human beings are _always_ more "outbreeding" than
the various racists/elitists/idiots would like to believe.
--
Michael L. Siemon We must know the truth, and we must
m...@panix.com love the truth we know, and we must
act according to the measure of our love.
-- Thomas Merton
Romley Cromwell
Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:932331452.1567.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
> The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems
to
> be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the
time.
> Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
> purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats. There
> was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
> (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds of
Not at all, which makes your refutation unsustainable. The loss of status
among females is multiplicative and rapid. These islands were islands of men
primarily, while the women came and went.
I'm very new to genealogy, but I'm "old to math". It took me only a few days
of combing the new LDS Family History website (www.familysearch.com) romping
thru my ancestors' pedigrees to spot a remarkable pattern. Female lines are
like on-ramps to high society when going backward in time. (Which is the
same as saying that daughters lost status rapidly with each successive
generation. A daughter of a daughter of a daughter of a king could be almost
back to peasantry, and a couple more generations of daughters would
guarantee it.)
I was surprised to find that my richest source of connections to Charlemagne
came from the one line in all of my genealogy that had become so "degraded"
that they were actually marrying Native Americans. Now, don't misunderstand
that statement. I'm now a descendant of those Native Americans, and I'm
delighted about it, but in those days, that sort of marriage made you sort
of a peasant among peasants. I have a rock solid connection to Gov. William
Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. I figured that's where I'd look first to
reach royalty. Wrong. The Bradford line was prestigious, but it never went
"up" from there as I went back. To get to the Plantagenets, all I had to do
was follow the mother of a mother of a mother of a "half-breed Injun" and I
was on my way to the top. I could take a father's line occasionally, but
then I'd have to get back on the mother track again.
We don't have records of our mothers that match our fathers, though,
speaking historically. My pedigree charts tended to have people in the upper
right, and nobody in the lower right. Yet we're just a much descendants of
our mothers as of our fathers. I soon discovered that if I could find a
chart with people in the lower right, I might hit pay dirt. This pattern
seemed equally true in any century from, say, the 19th on back.
It's because of the lack of the records of our mothers' mothers' mothers
that we don't see how all of us with European roots connect back to
Charlemagne. Even putting aside the issue of illegitimacy, there were as
many girls as boys born to those families, statistically. Legitimate girls
lost nearly as much status as illegitimate boys. After 40 generations of
this, even with the class and geographic clustering that the original
article didn't compensate for, every European descendant has a path back to
Charlemagne.
Chris Dickinson
The article was complete rubbish.
There is no 'mathematical proof' of the existence of
inevitable descent
from Charlemagne. Nor indeed is such (Western) universal
descent likely.
The reason why it is unlikely, and the reason why views on
this polarise, has nothing to do with class (as seems to be
the assumption so far in this thread) but everything to do
with geography.
There is a great deal of difference between what happens in
melting-pot urban conurbations and what happens in rural
communities. The vast majority of Europeans have lived in
the latter.
Urban environments attract people from different localities
and break down family and ethnic barriers. The gene pool is
a very rich and varied one.
Rural communities are very static by comparison ... I would
guess that 90%+ of marriages within such communities in
pre-1800 England have been between partners who were born
not more than 30 miles apart. The gene pool is much smaller.
Anyone whose ancestry comes largely from the country has a
much much smaller chance of descent from a non-local
historic figure than has an urbanite.
So why has this created a polarisation of views among
contributers to this thread?
Two things have a similar effect to urban mixing. The first
is proximity to power .... people whose ancestors were at
court or dealing with government were more likely to marry
at distance and to receive land grants that would encourage
geographic movement. The second was emigration to the
Americas, which totally and absolutely upset the genetic
applecart.
The people who are arguing for a universal descent from
Charlemagne seem to come from backgrounds that fit within
these non-rural categories. Someone with a New World
ancestry is much more likely to have a descent fom
Charlemagne than someone living in the Old, nothing to do
with class, all to do with mix. So the polarisation of
opinion has come more from a polarisation of perspective
than from any rational argument.
Chris
John Wilson
Chris Dickinson wrote in message <7mv1tf$p9r$1...@gxsn.com>...
>Urban environments attract people from different localities
>and break down family and ethnic barriers. The gene pool is
>a very rich and varied one.
>
communities. The pool in Paris, for example, was found to be about 900
people; that in some rural area of France about 1100 people.
Having said that, my own opinion is that the records do not support
any opinion whatsoever, and that is my fixed opinion.
John GW
Matthew Harley
Chris Dickinson wrote:
<snip interesting stuff>
> The people who are arguing for a universal descent from
> Charlemagne seem to come from backgrounds that fit within
> these non-rural categories. Someone with a New World
> ancestry is much more likely to have a descent fom
> Charlemagne than someone living in the Old, nothing to do
> with class, all to do with mix. So the polarisation of
> opinion has come more from a polarisation of perspective
> than from any rational argument.
I am not into genealogy but I was not impressed by the argument that we
were "all descended from Charlemagne" and essentially for the reasons
Chris gives. I come from Ireland and I suppose I could trace my line
back to some of the old kings of Ireland (like everybody else there!)
but I doubt very much if Charlemange would figure as an ancestor of many
"native Irish"; it is simply a matter of isolation. Of course we had
invasions and plantations but most of these visitors came from the other
island! The Vikings might have been an exception but I doubt if many
Vikings were descended from Charlemagne....
Likewise I felt that that argument would also apply to rural areas of
"mainland Europe" which were also for centuries quite isolated. I think
inter-marriage between close relatives was a problem in rural areas and
a good indicator of isolation and lack of mobility. This may explain why
country folk think city slickers are puffed up; they strut around the
place saying: "I'm descended from Charlemagne you know, are you?
I also had the feeling, as Chris as pointed out, that Americans making
the "my g.g.g.....daddy was Big Charlie" argument are a special case and
for precisely the reasons Chris gives.
I suppose this is testable: how many of you folks with Irish roots can
trace those Irish ancestors back to Charlemagne?
Matt Harley
D. Spencer Hines
This strikes me as one of the most thoughtful and intelligent posts
I've seen on this matter in a very long time.
It repays close reading and appears to have been made by a new poster
to these groups, Romley Cromwell. There are several new Lines of
Inquiry opened up by the post.
Welcome Aboard!
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
Fortem Posce Animum
--
D. Spencer Hines --- "She [Hillary Rodham Clinton] loves eunuch geek
men." [CP]; "Like Who?" [The Women's Quarterly]; "Oh my God, look at
them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes --- they all
look alike. They are all weird Ichabod Crane men, all high IQ men who
have no natural virility, okay? It's really weird. She loves to have
her little cabals with them. And the other one --- the lawyer David
Kendall --- they're all alike, and they all bond with her. They're all
joined at the hip with her! "Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia is a culture critic,
libertarian feminist, and columnist for the Internet magazine _Salon_.
She is also the author of four books including _Sexual Personae: Art
and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American
Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_." _The Women's Quarterly_, Spring
1999, Number 19.
Romley Cromwell <rom...@natigen.com> wrote in message
news:1IDk3.2657$K3.6...@nuq-read.news.verio.net...
>
> Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:932331452.1567.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
> > The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem
here seems
> to
> > be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of
the
> time.
> > Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all
intents and
> > purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other
aristocrats. There
> > was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social
scale
> > (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many
hundreds of
Romley Cromwell
Chris Dickinson <sej...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7mv1tf$p9r$1...@gxsn.com...
> Re : descent from Charlemagne
>
>
> The article was complete rubbish.
>
> There is no 'mathematical proof' of the existence of
> inevitable descent
> from Charlemagne. Nor indeed is such (Western) universal
> descent likely.
>
> The reason why it is unlikely, and the reason why views on
> this polarise, has nothing to do with class (as seems to be
> the assumption so far in this thread) but everything to do
> with geography.
>
> There is a great deal of difference between what happens in
> melting-pot urban conurbations and what happens in rural
> the latter.
>
Chris, I think you've just scored a hit and changed my mind. My argument
wasn't based on class considerations, but on an assumption that my American
ancestors, because of their geographical diversity, were rather typical of
the diverse body of European descendants. I wasn't aware that I was making
that assumption, but now that I am, it changes things, because that
assumption is clearly wrong.
My ancestors aren't much like the ancestors of today's rural Italians or
Finlanders or Hungarians until you go back a lot farther than Charlemagne.
It's only because my ancestors are typical of the early immigrants to
America that I have such a large number of possibilities of descent from
Charlemagne. Of my four grandparents, three of them seem to have come from
exclusively British and Irish lines. The fourth comes from Scandinavians,
and I see little hope of the Scandinavians having a connection to
Charlemagne.
Of the other three lines, only half of one of them goes to Ireland. The rest
almost all go back to England. As I follow the Irish line back a couple of
generations before the immigration to America, I find them all coming from a
single Irish county for four or five generations, until the record is lost.
I don't have a lot of confidence that I would find a route out of Ireland in
time to intersect with Charlemagne, even if I could trace the lines back a
few more generations. If they were almost all Irish for 500 years before the
jump to America in the 1700's -- which is probably a safe bet -- then I
would have little chance of finding a route to Charlemagne.
The only reason I find so many routes to Charlemagne is that 3.5 of my 4
grandparents' lines represent a low diversity of European nations (that is,
they're almost all English in the 1500's), but a *very high diversity within
English society*. As recently as the 1500's I seem to have ancestors from
nearly every English county, and across the spectrum of social classes,
representing the very wide variety of reasons people had for coming to
America.
Clearly, this pattern of ancestry is not very typical of most rural
Continental European families, as you point out. Descent from Charlemagne is
still likely to be extremely common among most North Americans of
predominantly English descent, but that's not the same as saying generically
"people of European descent".
Romley Cromwell
to modify my opinion. I hope that being open to persuation by the arguments
of others won't make me less "thoughtful and intelligent".
I'm modifying my statement about the significance of following our mothers'
lines to say that I believe that virtually all North Americans of
predominantly English descent will find a route to Charlemagne, but this is
different from saying "everyone of European descent". The diversity of
reasons for coming to North America from the British isles results in a
large geographic and class diversity among ancestors in England in, say, the
1500's, allowing for a huge number of possibilities for descent from
Charlemagne, especially if you follow the female lines backward.
The majority of rural Europeans still in Europe don't have the same kind of
ancestry pattern. Their best bets would still be to follow female lines, but
they may not have the geographic diversity recently enough to connect in to
Charlemagne. Unlike status, I see less reason to assume greater geographic
diversity from our mothers than from our fathers, other than the possibility
that women moved to where their husbands were more often than the reverse. I
would suspect that the great majority of this movement would just be across
town, though.
D. Spencer Hines <D._Spence...@aya.yale.edu> wrote in message
news:7mvnev$4l1$1...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net...
> Vide infra.
>
> This strikes me as one of the most thoughtful and intelligent posts
> I've seen on this matter in a very long time.
>
> It repays close reading and appears to have been made by a new poster
> to these groups, Romley Cromwell. There are several new Lines of
> Inquiry opened up by the post.
>
> Welcome Aboard!
>
> D. Spencer Hines
>
> Lux et Veritas
> Fortem Posce Animum
> --
>
> D. Spencer Hines --- "She [Hillary Rodham Clinton] loves eunuch geek
> men." [CP]; "Like Who?" [The Women's Quarterly]; "Oh my God, look at
> them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes --- they all
> look alike. They are all weird Ichabod Crane men, all high IQ men who
> have no natural virility, okay? It's really weird. She loves to have
> her little cabals with them. And the other one --- the lawyer David
> Kendall --- they're all alike, and they all bond with her. They're all
> joined at the hip with her! "Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities
> at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia is a culture critic,
> libertarian feminist, and columnist for the Internet magazine _Salon_.
> She is also the author of four books including _Sexual Personae: Art
> and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American
> Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_." _The Women's Quarterly_, Spring
> 1999, Number 19.
>
> Romley Cromwell <rom...@natigen.com> wrote in message
> news:1IDk3.2657$K3.6...@nuq-read.news.verio.net...
> >
> > Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:932331452.1567.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
> > > The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem
> here seems
> > to
> > > be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of
> the
> > time.
> > > Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all
> intents and
> > > purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other
> aristocrats. There
> > > was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social
> scale
> > > (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many
> hundreds of
Spehon
> In article <932331452.1567.0...@news.demon.co.uk>,
> Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems to
> >be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the time.
> >Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
> >purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats.
>
> You seem to be taking it for granted that no children have ever been
> conceived outside marriage.
>
> If this has consistently been true for Europe, my knowledge of European
> history is weaker than I thought.
Dan is quite right regarding illegitimacy amongst the nobles. Take
several English Kings from the 12th & 13th centuries:
Henry I At least 25 illegitimate children
Stephen At least 5 illegitimate children
Henry II At least 12 illegitimate children
Richard I 1, possibly 2, illegitimate children
John At least 12 illegitimate children
And were all of these children consistently given positions
within the aristocracy? Some certainly were (remember William the
Bastard) but some weren't. And you can bet the ones we *don't* know
about weren't.
The above Kings are all descendants of Charlemagne. Imagine the
number of descendants their 55 (at least, surely more) illegitimate
offspring have running around today.
Now, think back to Alfred the Great (I do not know offhand if he was
descended from Charlemagne but my point that follows still holds).
He was born in approximately 847 - the date is unknown and the year
isn't even certain. Given that we don't even *know* the year of
birth of England's most famous pre-Norman King, it is logical to
surmise that we don't know of numerous illegitimate children from
Royals such as Alfred.
Such individuals were probably even more promiscuous than your average
contemporary person, having the power and ability to carry on such
affairs with a high degree of impunity.
Even assuming only occasional Royal 'leaks' (an offspring leaving
the aristocracy), given that it was so long ago they have likely
left countless modern descendants about, whether that can be traced
or whether the specific details are lost to the ages.
Spehon
Matthew Harley
I tend to agree with this.
We folk who come from small islands off the European mainland probably
have not been touched much by Big Charlie's genes. That may help to
explain why we appear such an odd lot to the rest of you!
And further West, I doubt if many on Inish Mór have any of Charlie's
genes.
You American and other colonial folk have been touched (blessed?) a fair
bit by our genes. But can you give reliable links that show that many
of these old Irish genes came from Charlemagne - and no statistics
please?
Matt Harley
James Kaczmarek
>
> The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems to
> be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the time.
> Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
> purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats. There
> was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
> (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds of
While this may be true on the surface, it certainly isn't true between
the sheets. Noble folk were forever having illegitimate kids; some with
noble women and others with commoners. My 6th GGF had an affair with a
castle serving wench which resulted in my 5th GGF, born 1695. This was
documented in the church archives in Poltringen, Ger.
It has been said that in France (other countries as well?) that the
local Lord had at his disposal peasant women on their wedding nights.
Obviously a given percentage of these women must have become pregnant
even from but one shot, thus infusing peasant blood with noble blood.
Most of these pregnancies would likely not have been recorded as
resulting from the Lord's work, however.
Of course, in our American slave holding days, the local master often
took Black slave women to bed, resulting in half Black, half White kids,
most of whom the masters denied. Please recall the recent controversy
about the Black descendants of American President Jefferson?
Aristocrats do spread their genes among the non-aristocrats virtually
all over the world. Somewhere, years ago, I read that Benjamin
Franklin, quite the lech, had 29 half Black children, not to mention his
White kids. Then too, there are "Black" families who have been
"passing" as White for years in America. I believe one of the "Black"
Jefferson lines is in this condition.
I am half Polish. My daughter has eyes that remind one of a slightly
oriental look. I sometimes wonder if some Tatar fellow isn't in our
genealogy some generations ago.
I sometimes smile when people talk of racial purity like there really is
such a thing. There are Eskimos in Greenland with White blood from Adm.
Perry, and Black blood from Perry's assistant. In New England whaling
ports, men from around the world, of all "races", settled after their
whaling careers and married mostly White New England women and had
families. Most early American French families have Indian blood. Black
males, during Roman times, settled all over the Empire and inter-married
with White women, so many European families have Black blood, etc, etc.
My 6th GGF was in the Spanish Order of Calatrava ca 1650). To enter one
had to be of Noble descent and be able to prove one did not have Moorish
nor Jewish blood. (Early Arianism apparently.) Since there was this
demand of "purity", it must have been true that many folks, otherwise
eligible potential members, did in fact have Moorish and/or Jewish
blood.
Anyway, unless descendants of Charlesmagne restricted their lechery to
only noble women, there must be a potful of non-aristocratic descendants
of the Noble Karl. Since I am descended from several noble houses,
paticularly from the region of Swabia, and although I consider myself as
commoner, I too could be a descendant of The Great Charles. But so
what!?!
I found it curious that during WWII the Nazis spoke of Polish folk as
Untermenschen - sub-humans, but at the same time they kidnapped ethnic
Polish children to be raised by German families so to help increase the
"German" population. So often we humans choose the appearance of
reality over true reality. Why is that?
Regards to all, Jim
Paul J Gans
>Graham Milne wrote:
>>
>> The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems to
>> be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the time.
>> Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
>> purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats. There
>> was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
>> (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds of
>While this may be true on the surface, it certainly isn't true between
>the sheets. Noble folk were forever having illegitimate kids; some with
>noble women and others with commoners. My 6th GGF had an affair with a
>castle serving wench which resulted in my 5th GGF, born 1695. This was
>documented in the church archives in Poltringen, Ger.
>It has been said that in France (other countries as well?) that the
>local Lord had at his disposal peasant women on their wedding nights.
>Obviously a given percentage of these women must have become pregnant
>even from but one shot, thus infusing peasant blood with noble blood.
>Most of these pregnancies would likely not have been recorded as
>resulting from the Lord's work, however.
Not so. At least the notion of a "right of first night"
is an illusion. It is an illusion with an interesting
political history, however. For full details see
Alain Boureau, _The Lord's First Night_, Chicago, 1998 (paper).
ISBN 0-226-06743-2.
I know that this comes as a disapointment to some of you
with noble forebearers, but try to buck up. ;-)
[...]
D. Spencer Hines
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
--
D. Spencer Hines --- "She [Hillary Rodham Clinton] loves eunuch geek
men." [CP]; "Like Who?" [The Women's Quarterly]; "Oh my God, look at
them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes --- they all
look alike. They are all weird Ichabod Crane men, all high IQ men who
have no natural virility, okay? It's really weird. She loves to have
her little cabals with them. And the other one --- the lawyer David
Kendall --- they're all alike, and they all bond with her. They're all
joined at the hip with her! "Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia is a culture critic,
libertarian feminist, and columnist for the Internet magazine _Salon_.
She is also the author of four books including _Sexual Personae: Art
and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American
Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_." _The Women's Quarterly_, Spring
1999, Number 19.
Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:7n0dn7$359$3...@news.panix.com...
> In soc.history.medieval James Kaczmarek <kac...@execpc.com> wrote:
> >Graham Milne wrote:
> >>
> >> The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem
here seems to
> >> be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities
of the time.
> >> Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all
intents and
> >> purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other
aristocrats. There
> >> was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social
scale
> >> (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many
hundreds of
> >> years. ETC!
>
> >While this may be true on the surface, it certainly isn't true
between
> >the sheets. Noble folk were forever having illegitimate kids; some
with
> >noble women and others with commoners. My 6th GGF had an affair
with a
> >castle serving wench which resulted in my 5th GGF, born 1695. This
was
> >documented in the church archives in Poltringen, Ger.
>
> >It has been said that in France (other countries as well?) that the
> >local Lord had at his disposal peasant women on their wedding
nights.
> >Obviously a given percentage of these women must have become
pregnant
> >even from but one shot, thus infusing peasant blood with noble
blood.
> >Most of these pregnancies would likely not have been recorded as
> >resulting from the Lord's work, however.
>
> Not so. At least the notion of a "right of first night"
> is an illusion. It is an illusion with an interesting
> political history, however. For full details see
>
> Alain Boureau, _The Lord's First Night_, Chicago, 1998 (paper).
> ISBN 0-226-06743-2.
<snip>
> ----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Actually, as has previously been discussed here quite exhaustively
before, this simplistic assertion is quite inaccurate and grossly
overstated.
The book by Alain Boureau is neither reliable as History, nor
scholarly. It is a literary excursion.
A young German scholar with whom I've been in correspondence is
working on a new book on the 'jus primae noctis' and when it is
published I'll have more to say here on SHM.
D. Spencer Hines
You two are saying many, but far from all, of the same things --- in
different words.
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
Fortem Posce Animum
--
D. Spencer Hines --- "She [Hillary Rodham Clinton] loves eunuch geek
men." [CP]; "Like Who?" [The Women's Quarterly]; "Oh my God, look at
them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes --- they all
look alike. They are all weird Ichabod Crane men, all high IQ men who
have no natural virility, okay? It's really weird. She loves to have
her little cabals with them. And the other one --- the lawyer David
Kendall --- they're all alike, and they all bond with her. They're all
joined at the hip with her! "Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia is a culture critic,
libertarian feminist, and columnist for the Internet magazine _Salon_.
She is also the author of four books including _Sexual Personae: Art
and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American
Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_." _The Women's Quarterly_, Spring
1999, Number 19.
William Addams Reitwiesner <wr...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3797c897...@news.erols.com...
> "Romley Cromwell" <rom...@natigen.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:932331452.1567.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
> >> The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem
here seems
> >to
> >> be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities
of the
> >time.
> >> Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all
intents and
> >> purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other
aristocrats. There
> >> was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social
scale
> >> (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many
hundreds of
> >> years...
> >
> >Not at all, which makes your refutation unsustainable. The loss of
status
> >among females is multiplicative and rapid. These islands were
islands of men
> >primarily, while the women came and went.
> >
> >I'm very new to genealogy, but I'm "old to math". It took me only a
few days
> >of combing the new LDS Family History website
(www.familysearch.com) romping
> >thru my ancestors' pedigrees to spot a remarkable pattern. Female
lines are
> >like on-ramps to high society when going backward in time. (Which
is the
> >same as saying that daughters lost status rapidly with each
successive
> >generation. A daughter of a daughter of a daughter of a king could
be almost
> >back to peasantry, and a couple more generations of daughters would
> >guarantee it.)
This was indeed hyped and exaggerated.
>
> Well, not quite.
>
> What you're referring to (mother's mother's mother's mother, or
daughters
> of daughters of daughters, etc.) are called "matrilineal descents"
(or
> "matrilineal ancestries" if you're going backwards in time). I'm
the
> author of the largest collection of matrilineal genealogies ever
assembled
> (*Matrilineal Descents of the European Royalty*), and what you'll
find,
> over time, is that matrilineal descents tend to cross social class
> boundaries _gradually_, as opposed to patrilineal descents, which
either
> jump upwards quickly (through ambition, recognition, preferment,
honors,
> etc.), or jump downwards quickly (through illegitimacy, etc.),
though these
> effects are somewhat harder to see in Britain with its tradition of
> primogeniture.
>
> Both patrilineal and matrilineal descents tend to "stay put", in
terms of
> social class. The difference I'm referring to is when the social
class
> boundaries are crossed, matrilineal descents cross more gradually
and
> patrilineal descents cross more suddenly.
>
> Which is why you can use these female descents as on-ramps :)
>
>
> William Addams Reitwiesner
> wr...@erols.com
>
> "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc."
D. Spencer Hines
How the Hell are the 'Batty Boys At the Metropolitan Archives'?
Shalom,
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
--
D. Spencer Hines --- "She [Hillary Rodham Clinton] loves eunuch geek
men." [CP]; "Like Who?" [The Women's Quarterly]; "Oh my God, look at
them all! Sidney Blumenthal, Ira Magaziner, Harold Ickes --- they all
look alike. They are all weird Ichabod Crane men, all high IQ men who
have no natural virility, okay? It's really weird. She loves to have
her little cabals with them. And the other one --- the lawyer David
Kendall --- they're all alike, and they all bond with her. They're all
joined at the hip with her! "Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities
at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia is a culture critic,
libertarian feminist, and columnist for the Internet magazine _Salon_.
She is also the author of four books including _Sexual Personae: Art
and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American
Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_." _The Women's Quarterly_, Spring
1999, Number 19.
John Yohalem <ench...@herodotus.com> wrote in message
news:7n0ue1$a...@news-central.tiac.net...
> > More generally, wealthy people survived at a far
> >higher rate than the rest of the population, and so were much more
> >likely to produce descendants - thus one's ancestors are more
likely
> >to be found among the relatively small population of royalty and
> >nobility, including Charlemagne.
>
> I'd love to know how you'd prove this.
>
> On the contrary, since the nobility specialized in marrying
heiresses, which
> usually meant females surviving among families of very few children,
defects
> in reproduction were quite often salient among the upper classes.
The fact
> that the old nobility are always dying out and having to be
replenished from
> new nobiility, in ever country with varying degreees of strictness,
shows
> that in fact the cards are stacked the other way.
>
> Also: People didn't marry foreigners very often, or even people from
two
> towns away. It is unusual. Most people married within their own
class and
> their own locale.
>
> Also, I'm Jewish, on all sides. I'd love to be able to trace myself
back to
> Charlemagne, but the ancestors I've got (back to the 16th century in
one
> line) go nowhere near him.
>
> Jean Coeur de Lapin
>
>
> John Yohalem
> ench...@herodotus.com
>
> "Opera depends on the happy fiction that feeling can be sustained
over
> impossibly long stretches of time." -- Joseph Kerman
>
>
William Addams Reitwiesner
>
>Graham Milne <gra...@gmilne.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:932331452.1567.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
>> The article is, of course, complete rubbish. The basic problem here seems
>to
>> be that a mathematician completely ignores the social realities of the
>time.
>> Surprise, surprise! Namely, that the aristocracy were, to all intents and
>> purposes, on a genealogical island - they married other aristocrats. There
>> was, of course, a gradual process of 'filtration' down the social scale
>> (mainly via daughters), but this process has taken many, many hundreds of
>> years...
>
>Not at all, which makes your refutation unsustainable. The loss of status
>among females is multiplicative and rapid. These islands were islands of men
>primarily, while the women came and went.
>
>I'm very new to genealogy, but I'm "old to math". It took me only a few days
>of combing the new LDS Family History website (www.familysearch.com) romping
>thru my ancestors' pedigrees to spot a remarkable pattern. Female lines are
>like on-ramps to high society when going backward in time. (Which is the
>same as saying that daughters lost status rapidly with each successive
>generation. A daughter of a daughter of a daughter of a king could be almost
>back to peasantry, and a couple more generations of daughters would
>guarantee it.)
Well, not quite.
William Addams Reitwiesner
Ahem.
Charlemagne, Emperor of the West (d. 814) m. Hildegard of Swabia
Emperor Louis I (d. 840) m. Judith of Bavaria
Gisela m. Eberhard Margrave of Friulia (d. 864 or 866)
Berengar I K of Italy (d. 924) m. Bertila of Spoleto
Gisela of Friulia m. Adalbert Margrave of Istria (d. c. 923)
Berengar II K of Italy (d. 966) m. Willa of Tuscany
Adalbert II Margrave of Istria (d. 971) m. Gerberge of Macon
Odo Guillaume D of Burgundy (d. 1026) m. Ermentrude de Roucy
Renaud D of Burgundy (d. 1057) m. Judith of Normandy
Guillaume I D of Burgundy (d. 1087) m. Etienette
Gisela of Burgundy m. Umberto II D of Savoy (d. 1103)
Amadeo III D of Savoy (d. 1148) m. Maud of Vienne
Mafalda of Savoy m. Affonso I K of Portugal (d. 1185)
Sancho I K of Portugal (d. 1212) m. Dulcia of Aragon
Berengaria of Portugal m. Waldemar II K of Denmark (d. 1241)
Eirik IV (d. 1250), Abel (d. 1252), and Christoffer I (d.1259), Kings of
Denmark, and (through illegitimate children and grandchildren) ancestors of
many ordinary Scandinavians.
This is not the only descent of these three brothers from Charlemagne. Do
you want more of them?
>Of the other three lines, only half of one of them goes to Ireland. The rest
>almost all go back to England. As I follow the Irish line back a couple of
>generations before the immigration to America, I find them all coming from a
>single Irish county for four or five generations, until the record is lost.
>I don't have a lot of confidence that I would find a route out of Ireland in
>time to intersect with Charlemagne, even if I could trace the lines back a
>few more generations. If they were almost all Irish for 500 years before the
>jump to America in the 1700's -- which is probably a safe bet -- then I
>would have little chance of finding a route to Charlemagne.
>
>The only reason I find so many routes to Charlemagne is that 3.5 of my 4
>grandparents' lines represent a low diversity of European nations (that is,
>they're almost all English in the 1500's), but a *very high diversity within
>English society*. As recently as the 1500's I seem to have ancestors from
>nearly every English county, and across the spectrum of social classes,
>representing the very wide variety of reasons people had for coming to
>America.
>
>Clearly, this pattern of ancestry is not very typical of most rural
>Continental European families, as you point out. Descent from Charlemagne is
>still likely to be extremely common among most North Americans of
>predominantly English descent, but that's not the same as saying generically
>"people of European descent".
You're obviously unaware of exactly how widely Charlemagne's descendants
spread, and how quickly they spread. See the various works by Brandenburg,
or Rösch, or West Winter on the first "n" number of generations of
Charlemagne's descendants.
This illustrates a point which is often overlooked these days, and that is
that the likely pool of spouses for anyone is circumscribed not only by
physical geography but also by social class. Children of the monarch of
country A tended to marry the children of the monarch of country B. A few
generations of this, and you can find a line (for example) from Charlemagne
through Italy and Burgundy and back into Northern Italy and then Portugal
and finally Denmark in only sixteen generations (see above). Once these
descents are spread this wide in a geographical sense, and then trickling
downward in social class through marriages of children (legitimate and
illegitimate) of the monarchs into the higher nobility of their country,
and from there to the middle and lower nobility, then even further down
(and wider across) the social scale *within* a country, the claim that
"everyone of European ancestry is descended from Charlemagne" becomes much
more supportable.
Hells bells, there's even a plausible (though not fully documentable)
descent from Charlemagne to the Comnenus emperors of Trebizond, which is at
the eastern edge of the Black Sea. The descents from these Trapezuntine
Emperors to the Safavid Shahs of Persia, and from there to the Moghul
Emperors of India have been documented, so if a Charlemagne -> Trebizond
line is firmly established then Charlemagne would have a sizeable number of
traceable descendants in the Indian subcontinent.
William Addams Reitwiesner
>The majority of rural Europeans still in Europe don't have the same kind of
>ancestry pattern. Their best bets would still be to follow female lines, but
>they may not have the geographic diversity recently enough to connect in to
>Charlemagne. Unlike status, I see less reason to assume greater geographic
>diversity from our mothers than from our fathers, other than the possibility
>that women moved to where their husbands were more often than the reverse. I
>would suspect that the great majority of this movement would just be across
>town, though.
At the peasant level, yes. Across town or maybe one or two towns over. At
the minor noble level the move was a few estates over, but still in the
same subsection of the county (or whatever administrative district was in
place in that country). At the higher noble level the move was across the
county or to the next county over. Capitals and their bureaucracies upset
these patterns, as does migration, but in general the rule is that the
distance a daughter moves at her marriage is directly proportional to her
social class.
And yes, it was the daughters who moved. Sons inherited the land while
daughters were given dowries.
John Yohalem
>higher rate than the rest of the population, and so were much more
>likely to produce descendants - thus one's ancestors are more likely
>to be found among the relatively small population of royalty and
>nobility, including Charlemagne.
I'd love to know how you'd prove this.
John Wilson
John Yohalem wrote >
>Also, I'm Jewish, on all sides. I'd love to be able to trace myself back to
>Charlemagne, but the ancestors I've got (back to the 16th century in one
>line) go nowhere near him.
>
mother. Is that correct?
What is the significance of Charlemagne? Genes are discrete. If
Charlemagne had a million descendants, the odds would be that a significant
number wouldn't have any of his genes anyhow, nor inherit any of his
territorial rights.
Cheers
John GW
John Oliver
<ench...@herodotus.com> wrote:
>Also, I'm Jewish, on all sides. I'd love to be able to trace myself back to
>Charlemagne, but the ancestors I've got (back to the 16th century in one
>line) go nowhere near him.
>
>Jean Coeur de Lapin
>
I'm Jewish myself with grandparents from Hungary, Russia and Germany.
I rather doubt any descent from Charlemagne. Although I assume some
of my ancestors were born as a result of rape by Christian men so its
at least theoretically possible.
What is special about Charlemagne? The Vikings were all over western
Europe and had trade with Russia and Byzantium. Their genes must have
been widely scattered. For that matter, the Mongols got deep into
Europe and must have left plenty of descendants.
John (jdol...@connectivity.net.au)
D. Spencer Hines
How would the probabilistic analysis work, over 40 generations, with
respect to genes, or smaller sub-divisions of genetic material, coming
from Charlemagne or Piers The Plowman or Rashi?
DSH
--
D. Spencer Hines --- "The Women's Quarterly: 'The first question I
want to ask you is about Monica. Is she a vixen or a victim? Did she
get what she wanted?' Camille Paglia: 'Well, Monica Lewinsky herself
bores me silly because she is a kind of a prototype of a narcissistic
and spoiled American girl that I have been seeing develop over the
last twenty-five years as a teacher --- not at my school, the
University of the Arts, where most people don't have those kinds of
economic advantages. But I certainly saw this coming from my first
job at Bennington College and later as a visiting instructor at
Wesleyan and Yale. And I have been warning about this for years and
saying that we are raising up a whole generation of young people who
are completely removed from any sense of the outside world.' "Camille
Paglia, Professor of Humanities at the University of the Arts in
Philadelphia is a culture critic, libertarian feminist, and columnist
for the Internet magazine _Salon_. She is also the author of four
books including _Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to
Emily Dickinson_; _Art and American Culture_; and _Vamps and Tramps_."
_The Women's Quarterly_, Spring 1999, Number 19.
Todd A. Farmerie <ta...@po.cwru.edu> wrote in message
news:3794DD...@po.cwru.edu...
> Harold Wyzansky wrote:
> >
> > At 23 pairs of chromosomes per person, the probability that any of
his have
> > survived 40 generations is miniscule. There are no claimed male
line
> > descendants so his Y chromosome has almost definitely vanished
into the
> > mists of time.
>
> Were it not for chromosome shuffling, then the probability would be
> quite high that at least one chromosome had passed on to the present
day
> in at least one of his innumerable descendants, particularly with
the
> tendancy of his descendants to intermarry. However, this is not how
it
> works. There is a shuffling of DNA between chromosome pairs with
every
> generation, so while his own children each had half of his DNA, no
> single intact chromosome was passed on (not even the Y, which has a
> small portion that crosses over with the X).
>
> taf
D. Spencer Hines
accordance with my previously stated policy, concerning initial,
hostile, e-mails, I'll not reveal the authors' names --- in order to
protect the guilty.
Both are very angry, condemning and dismissive. One is from a woman,
'Mary', and one is from a man --- 'John'.
'John' says he is furious because we keep talking about 'Descents From
Charlemagne' over 40 generations and he can't even identify his _eight
Great-Grandparents_. He says we should all shut up --- but he says it
with a few choice obscenities sprinkled in the fragrant mix.
'Mary' is even more intemperate, but not obscene. She says she can't
even identify all four of her _Grandparents_. She is 'intimidated',
'offended', 'feeling dissed' and 'fed up by all this talk about royal
and noble medievals'. She says 'we should all spend more time talking
about the common people in the Middle Ages.'
Both 'Mary' and 'John' are subscribers to both soc.genealogy.medieval
and soc.history.medieval.
Admittedly, studying Medieval History and Genealogy does seem to be
more fun if one knows that some of these folks being discussed are
ancestors --- flesh and blood --- as several astute folks have pointed
out, today and yesterday.
But, _au contraire_, even DISCUSSING these matters drives some folks
into a white-hot, incandescent, rage.
Just something to keep in mind. Emotions run very high in these
matters.
In fact, if one gives serious thought to it, probably a VERY high
percentage of folks cannot identify all eight of their
Great-Grandparents.
Proceeding to the 16 Great-Great-Grandparents, which would be required
to complete a _seize quartiers_, is even more problematic and
frustrating to some good folks. They go absolutely _batty_ when folks
are talking about 40 generations.
We could take a survey, for say the United States, and the percentage
of people who cannot identify all 16 of their Great-Great-Grandparents
would probably exceed even the size of the 'Vast Right Wing
Conspiracy'.
Pax Vobiscum.
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
Fortem Posce Animum
--
D. Spencer Hines --- Lady Astor, nee Nancy Witcher Langhorne of
Danville, Virginia [1879-1964] --- First Woman to serve as an MP ---
[Conservative, Plymouth] --- a Teetotaller, Appeaser [Hostess for the
"Cliveden Set"] and Ardent Francophobe; at a dinner party with Winston
Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965): "Winston, you're drunk!" WLSC:
"Yes Madam, I am --- and you are ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be
sober --- and you will still be ugly."
D. Spencer Hines
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
--
D. Spencer Hines --- Lady Astor, nee Nancy Witcher Langhorne of
Danville, Virginia [1879-1964] --- First Woman to serve as an MP ---
[Conservative, Plymouth] --- a Teetotaller, Appeaser [Hostess for the
"Cliveden Set"] and Ardent Francophobe; at a dinner party with Winston
Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965): "Winston, you're drunk!" WLSC:
"Yes Madam, I am --- and you are ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be
sober --- and you will still be ugly."
MTaHT <mt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990720102142...@ng-fv1.aol.com...
> >
> >I suppose this is testable: how many of you folks with Irish roots
can
> >trace those Irish ancestors back to Charlemagne?
> >
> >
> >Matt Harley
> >
>
> Remember that Ole King John came ashore with his Normans and
Angevins around
> 1195 (say 14 or so gens.from Charlemagne). Many of those nobles
and soldiers
> stayed to interbreed for another 25 gens or so.
>
> Cheers,
> Mike Talbot
No, you're off by 10 years.
Prince John, [he was only about 18/19], not King John --- Henry II was
still very much King of England --- sailed for Ireland, from Milford
Haven, on 24 April 1185.
John carried the additional title 'Dominus Hiberniae', 'dominus' being
the title accorded a king before he was actually crowned.
The Pope, Lucius III, had not yet approved John as King of the
'Kingdom of Ireland'. The papacy did approve it in November, after
Lucius III's death, but by that date John's mission had turned into a
fiasco. So, the crown of peacock feathers and gold that he had been
granted was not worth a pitcher of warm spit --- to quote a famous
Texan.
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas
Exitus Acta Probat
Eric Berge
James Kaczmarek wrote:
> It has been said that in France (other countries as well?) that the
> local Lord had at his disposal peasant women on their wedding nights.
Oh, Jeeze Louise.
Eric Berge
(remove _ for address)
-----------------------------------------
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover
Breath's a ware that will not keep
Up, lad! When the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- A.E.Housman, "Reveille"
-----------------------------------------