Man says he goes back to William the Conqueror

[theprestige]

I stayed there.
Beat that!

Dad?!

 

[LondonJohn]

I agree there was much interbreeding of social classes. However, the claim 'All Europeans are descended from Charlemange' is patronising garbage, best reserved for impressionable school kids.

Hahahahahaha!

Excuse me one moment while I choose

1) the combination of a) an actual understanding of the underlying statistics involved here, b) an actual understanding how genetic analysis can effectively prove descendency, and c) the entire weight of (very serious) academic understanding and literature in this area

over

2) Your entirely reflexive, plucked-from-thin-air, argued-from-incredulity, wholly-unsupported, intellectually-deficient opinion that it's "patronising garbage, best reserved for impressionable schoolkids".


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (But do carry on with this embarrassing cavalcade of bat poo if that's what floats your boat!)

 

[crescent]

Now we are getting somewhere. Extrapolating from that, you can readily see that not 'all Americans are descended from Charlemagne', even if its Europeans slept with African slaves brought over from C16. Some will be a descendant, many will not be. This is because populations don't tend to mate randomly.

There was a show that traced people's ancestry. I don't remember the name. In one episode they traced the ancestry of an African-American actress - to Charlemagne. She didn't know she had white ancestors in the mix, and was surprised that the genealogists found it (a Civil War era man of French descent in New Orleans who was descended from minor nobility).

It happens.

ETA: I have no idea how my post supports your conclusion. You'll have to be more clear.

 

[Vixen]

However, go back thirteen centuries, and you will find that there has been sufficient interbreeding that present Finns are still all would have Charlemagne as an ancestor (along with most other Europeans alive at that time who have any living descendants).

According to geni.com:

Charlemagne is your 40th great grandfather.

if its information is correct. However, I can see that not all Europeans mated randomly. There are ethnic groups within ethnic groups, who consider themselves relatively pure. For example, Sephardic Jews (who, OK, have Spanish and North African) and the Ashkenazis (who are ipso facto of German descent), or Tartars, Cossacks, Irish travellers, for example.

Just because Charlemagne is supposedly my ancestor, it doesn't mean it is true of 'everybody'. Maybe several million, but not 'all'. In any case, after forty generations he probably doesn't even comprise a nano-millimetre of an eyelash of my constitution.

 

[Vixen]

There was a show that traced people's ancestry. I don't remember the name. In one episode they traced the ancestry of an African-American actress - to Charlemagne. She didn't know she had white ancestors in the mix, and was surprised that the genealogists found it (a Civil War era man of French descent in New Orleans who was descended from minor nobility).

It happens.

ETA: I have no idea how my post supports your conclusion. You'll have to be more clear.

It is true that African-Americans will have significant amounts of European DNA because of slave masters sleeping with slaves. But it doesn't necessarily work the other way round. It's possible that 'all Americans have (relatively modern) sub-Saharan African DNA', but surely that would be a generalisation, based on nothing but a clever brain wave.

 

[LondonJohn]

According to geni.com:



if its information is correct. However, I can see that not all Europeans mated randomly. There are ethnic groups within ethnic groups, who consider themselves relatively pure. For example, Sephardic Jews (who, OK, have Spanish and North African) and the Ashkenazis (who are ipso facto of German descent), or Tartars, Cossacks, Irish travellers, for example.

Just because Charlemagne is supposedly my ancestor, it doesn't mean it is true of 'everybody'. Maybe several million, but not 'all'. In any case, after forty generations he probably doesn't even comprise a nano-millimetre of an eyelash of my constitution.

Hahahahahahaha!

(Oh, and what proportion of "your constitution" do you think that, for example, a 10th-generation ancestor comprises? One might, perhaps, feel smugly proud of having a famous 10th-gen ancestor - someone from maybe the late 1700s, so not ALL that long ago - but do you know what 0.5^10 actually is.....?)

 

[crescent]

In any case, after forty generations he probably doesn't even comprise a nano-millimetre of an eyelash of my constitution.

Which could be true of many of those "pure" groups. There may not be enough of Charles Magness to have any appreciable actual impact on their genotype. But he's still there, buried in the mix with his little <0.00000001% contribution to the family tree.

 

[crescent]

It is true that African-Americans will have significant amounts of European DNA because of slave masters sleeping with slaves. But it doesn't necessarily work the other way round. It's possible that 'all Americans have (relatively modern) sub-Saharan African DNA', but surely that would be a generalisation, based on nothing but a clever brain wave.

Sure - but we are comparing a period of some hundreds (American slavery onward) of years to a period of more than a thousand (Charlemagne onward).

Come back to America in 1200 years and see who else is in the family tree of my descendants.

 

[Vixen]

Not to mention descent through female lines, also, with rare exceptions, likely ineligible to inherit or rule. England's Tudor dynasty is still around and thriving, although with several name changes, for example.

But only a few Eastenders, such as Danny Dyer, or bog-standard musicians, such as, Ministry of Sound founder, Berkmann, can actually prove their lineage to the Tudors, Stuarts and Plantagenets.

I knew someone who was descended from Anne Boleyn, or so she said.

 

[LondonJohn]

Which could be true of many of those "pure" groups. There may not be enough of Charles Magness to have any appreciable actual impact on their genotype. But he's still there, buried in the mix with his little 0.00000001% contribution to the family tree.

Exactly.

In fact, there's PRECISELY the same proportion of King Edward II's genetic code present in (say) Danny Dyer, as there is in (say) Prince William (assuming the same number of generational leaps in each case).

But then, you and I both understand the statistical exercise at play here................

 

[Vixen]

Hahahahahahaha!

(Oh, and what proportion of "your constitution" do you think that, for example, a 10th-generation ancestor comprises? One might, perhaps, feel smugly proud of having a famous 10th-gen ancestor - someone from maybe the late 1700s, so not ALL that long ago - but do you know what 0.5^10 actually is.....?)

I can't see why having Thomas Cromwell as an eighth grandfather shouldn't give Danny Dyer something to feel proud about.

He's not smug. He is just surprised and a bit chuffed, given his 'rough cockney' image.

By the way, it wouldn't be linear, it'd be more of a curve, so you need to express it as a logarithm.

 

[LondonJohn]

I can't see why having Thomas Cromwell as an eighth grandfather shouldn't give Danny Dyer something to feel proud about.

He's not smug. He is just surprised and a bit chuffed, given his 'rough cockney' image.

By the way, it wouldn't be linear, it'd be more of a curve, so you need to express it as a logarithm.

I wasn't referring to Danny Dyer

ETA: your edited last sentence makes.......... ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Logarithms have nothing at all to do with that calculation. The contribution of one's x-th ancestor to one's genome is 0.5^x. The generation-by-generation regression does indeed follow a logarithmic scale, but that's entirely irrelevant to the straight calculation for any given generationally-removed ancestor. Wow.

 

[Vixen]

I wasn't referring to Danny Dyer

ETA: your edited last sentence makes.......... ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Logarithms have nothing at all to do with that calculation. The contribution of one's x-th ancestor to your genome is 0.5^x. The generation-by-generation regression does indeed follow a logarithmic scale, but that's entirely irrelevant to the straight calculation for any given generationally-removed ancestor. Wow.

You have once again assumed people mate randomly. (Hint: there will be cousins of cousins within that mix.)

So cough it out - good old British envy - just who were you referring to? Hmmm?

 

[LondonJohn]

You have once again assumed people mate randomly.

No. No I haven't. It's you who have mistakenly assumed that this must be a precondition of things. I seriously suggest that you obtain some of the (voluminous, by multiple different authors around the world) articles on this subject, in order to better educate yourself on why you're wrong. The British Library will have it all.

 

[LondonJohn]

So cough it out - good old British envy - just who were you referring to? Hmmm?

Do you know what 0.5^10 is? Can you do that calculation?

 

[Vixen]

Do you know what 0.5^10 is? Can you do that calculation?

Er, would a certificate from the Institute of Statisticians do?

 

[LondonJohn]

Er, would a certificate from the Institute of Statisticians do?

Possibly not, based on precedent. So, what is 0.5^10?

 

[Craig4]

Vixen,

I have to ask, what's your desired end-state here? You've brought stuff like this up before in relationship to other royal families, some installed in modern monarchies and some now deposed. Should any of this have some impact in how Europe (as an American, the winners of the luck sperm club have no impact on our governance, as flawed as that arrangement may be right now) govern themselves? Do you think some families should be deposed and other granted the "crown" however that is defined? I understand people having an interest in where they come from but you interest in royalty seems beyond that. Should the current royals in the UK be deposed and replaced based on this research? If so, why?

 

[Retrograde]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Originally Posted by Retrograde
Not to mention descent through female lines, also, with rare exceptions, likely ineligible to inherit or rule. England's Tudor dynasty is still around and thriving, although with several name changes, for example.

Whilst 'commoners' did indeed not register marriages or births until relatively recently it does not follow in reverse that 'upper class' women had lots of babies with the servants, in sufficient quantity to claim, 'all of Europe can claim descent from her.'

I don't see how your reply relates to what I originally posted. Males are more likely to be a founder of a population than females because they're capable of producing more offspring an less risk to themselves.


I mentioned the Tudors as an example of how genealogies tend to focus on male lines while ignoring descent through female lines. Popular history likes to imply they ended with Elizabeth I, and neglects the offspring of Henry VIII's sisters. However, there's an elderly woman living in London named Elizabeth Windsor (although, like Madonna and Beyonce, she only uses one name) who can trace her ancestry back to Henry VII via his daughter Margaret and her granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots. Since Ms Windsor's great-grandmother - also in this line of descent- had a raft of children who lived to produce offspring of their own there are hundreds if not thousands Tudor descendants running around today. While not Charlemagne-levels of progeny, it's rather impressive considering that women commonly don't produce more than one offspring a year, and then only for a limited number of years. Add in another 500 years, and a male who sired over a dozen documented children by half a dozen women, and who knows how many undocumented ones -and was an expansionist conqueror based in central Europe - Charlemagne as the ancestor of modern Europeans* is plausible.


*I'm defining European as someone whose ancestors lived in what is commonly known as Europe, excluding present-day Russia.


The Tudors are also an interesting example because there seems to be a fair amount of uncertainty about how many children Henry VII's grandmother on the Tudor side had. Now this is a woman who was the daughter of a king of France and a widow of a king of England so you'd suppose that her life would be comparatively well-documented. Her one son by her first husband is: her offspring by her second husband/consort/boyfriend/whatever aren't - I've seen sources claiming from 2 to 6 of them.

 

[Tolls]

However, I can see that not all Europeans mated randomly. There are ethnic groups within ethnic groups, who consider themselves relatively pure. For example, Sephardic Jews (who, OK, have Spanish and North African) and the Ashkenazis (who are ipso facto of German descent), or Tartars, Cossacks, Irish travellers, for example.

You just argued yourself out of your position.
And the others were not isolated by any means.
That they "consider themselves relatiely pure" is irrelevant, as any number of genetic tests have shown in people who thought they were (for example) entirely British.

Just because Charlemagne is supposedly my ancestor, it doesn't mean it is true of 'everybody'. Maybe several million, but not 'all'. In any case, after forty generations he probably doesn't even comprise a nano-millimetre of an eyelash of my constitution.

You just don't want it to be the case so that your revelation is special.
Sorry, but you're just like everyone else, bar the part that you can trace the lineage.
Most of the rest of us are the descendants of some bastard or other from Charlemagne on...

But only a few Eastenders, such as Danny Dyer, or bog-standard musicians, such as, Ministry of Sound founder, Berkmann, can actually prove their lineage to the Tudors, Stuarts and Plantagenets.

And again, as in the other thread, this has sod all to do with proving lineage.
It is basic genetics and statistics.