Blessed Virgin Mary - How Did I Get Into Jesus' Family Tree?

Bonnie, you caught my eye with the surname Estep. You and I are 13th cousins through the Stoughtons, but I also had an Estep step-mother. I don't know anything at all about her family, but it makes me smile to think we might be more closely related than we know ;)

The archeological evidence from Israel (and other sites of course) has been amazing, hasn't it. The day will come that we won't need to wish for time machines to sort the evidence - it's written in the bones of the earth, if we only learn that language.

Christopher, you can leave the Holy Bible out of this discussion since the problem starts several centuries later.

Geni tells me that Dôn verch Mathonwy, {Fictitious, Mabinogion} is my 52nd great grandmother. My problem is that the uncertainty starts 1300 years later with this character: http://www.geni.com/people/Jon-Sm%C3%B8r/6000000001169296726

Jons ancestry is not proven, and the sources douesn't name his parents, even though he was in a high positin in the norwegian "government" at the time, his closest boss was the king. And he undoubtly belonged to the nobility. The curator of his profile has written a note saying: "Usikkert opphav", that in english means "Uncertain origin" or "Uncertain ancestry". His connection to his father should really be severed because there are no trustworthy source that mentions Jon as bein his son. You can even see the quality difference in the profiles.

And that is just my point. It doesn't help having good sourced people living in the first millennia, when our connection to them are doubtful several centuries later.

Remeber this, and I think (at least hope) that Justin agrees: Methodically, it is the one who submits a claim that bears the burden of proof. And not the other way around, since it would be virtually impossible to prove that someone who is not related, are not.

Erica Howton So exquisitely phrased!

I have several times wished for a time machine. Just to know how many children were born in that family, ask them were their children disappeared, here their lifestories ........... the list is unending, and their bones cannot tell me most of this. The only way the bones could tell me this is if they had a mouth, vocal cords and could speak to me. I've had many a pleasent dream about this, though, and I wake up just as disappointed every time.

Remi Trygve Pedersen Your soulful poetic depth was really unexpected!
This is why I love Geni, where else can you hear such divine words of longing spoken so eloquently?

Remi,
I do get your point. It is the lost years that are so hard to prove.
The above mentioned profile for:Don Anna verch Mathonwy, happens to be my 42nd Great Grandmother

And were are your doubtful link from you to her, Christopher? I do not believe there are no doubts at all.

Remi, I think you are very right to look more closely at later connections. There are many secure connections to Owain ap Hywel (and his cousins), but also many spurious connections.

Owain ap Hywel Dda

In most cases (I think) the problem will be a spurious connection to the Marcher Lords (the English nobles who controlled large parts of Wales and married into the Welsh royal families).

BTW, Jon Smør seems to be my 2nd cousin 20 times removed, but I've never heard of him until now - one of the benefits of Geni is that this is a line I never would have found myself. I'll have to trust others to be sure it's well-documented.

Erica, as I read your poetic comment about the bones of the earth, my unromantic mind immediately jumps to DNA ;)

DNA will only be part of the story though - twin studies have long since "proven" that it's not all "nature."

Those of you that are involved in this discussion, may want to take a look at another discussion: Lineage of King Odin to George Washington, !st President.......

I would encourage examination of a Book I come across entitled:
"The Pedigree and History of the Washington Family derived from Odin, founder of Scandinavia, B.C. 70" by: Albert Welles, President, American College of Genealogical Registry and Heraldry.

The contents are very interesting- understatement.

@ Christopher, Thanks for the suggestion: The book is available on-linehttp://www.archive.org/details/pedigreeandhisto00welliala

Thats the Link alright, Thank You Malka!

I haven't read the book, but all of you need to know that anything from Odin up until the Viking period is just fantasy and fairytale. It does not belong in a genealogical tree, and should be kept out of all of our trees on Geni,

I have heard positive and negative about DNA. Is it reliable, say, 400 years ago?

Debatable, Remi ;)

Bonnie, DNA is very reliable but it is a good idea to know what you're looking for and what you want to find. Almost always, you will get more information if you are testing in order to compare with a specific person who has also been tested.

We have a Geni project to help you get started:
http://www.geni.com/projects/DNA-Primer-A-portal-for-genetic-genealogy

It shows Anna Verch Mathonwy as my 41st Great Grandmother.

I have heard documentaries proving some myths are true, and some have partial truths. Legends, Myths. They all have to come from somewhere.

The Holy Spirit (our conscience) within, teaches us all things. We already know what is right or wrong.

Most of us do, Bonnie, most of us. (Some people are doing wrong things nevertheless.)

DNA is a very reliable in 2 lines, from son to father, and from daughter to mother. The Y-DNA for the males, and the MT-DNA for the females, but only in direct lines from father to son, and from mother to daughter. This way I think I have found my father's line all back to Freiberg, Germany in the late 1500'. But ofcourse, I don't have any DNA from that timeperiod to verify it with, I only have my genealogical research to back my claim.

Justin, absolutely debatable. I was probably a little late in time saying that the fantasies lasted till the viking time, the first historical persons are living around year 500. Around 250-300 years before the viking era.

But there are many things that are wrong in line depicted from Odin to George Washington. Odin is not the son of Fridulf, but the son of Bor and Bestla. On page 7 the book states that Niord is the same person as Yngve, but Yngve is Njords son Frøy and not Njord himself.

How good is your understanding of the swedish language, if it is good you could possibly read norwegian, too. Then you should read the book Ynglingatal and Yngling Saga, a study in historical sources. You can find the book online here: http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2007100104023 On page 253 there is a summary in english.

Claus Krag is a specialist in Old Norse philology and Norwegian medieval history. Cand.philol.1969, professor of ancient history at the University College of Telemark.

Good reading.

Remi, I took Swedish in college and can read it, but only with difficulty. I even read a bit of Old Norse ;) As a graduate student in history I was drawn to both the Norse sagas and the chansons de geste. I've read extracts from Krag's book. He is sometimes cited by American academics working in the same field.

The old Norse pedigrees are much more interesting and a much livelier debate - I think - than the old Celtic pedigrees, because there are more sources, so it is easier analyze the conflicts. The descent of the Anglo-Saxon kings from Woden is a notorious forgery, grafting on a Welsh pedigree to an Anglo-Saxon tradition. The descent of the Jarls of Orkney is also easily disproved. And, we have a very famous gateway figure - Ragnar Lodbrok - who seems to have been something of a composite of various historical figures, so most of these descents from Odin / Woden should be cut off -- as soon as someone takes the time to document the best academic sources and create the links in the About Me's so that those who are interested can follow them.

I had hoped to find time this weekend to pull out some of the easy stuff to post here, but time is getting away from me. It will have to wait until later in the week, or maybe even a bit longer.

When it comes to DNA, don't forget that autosomnal DNA will also help connect people within the past five or six generations, and provide clues that can help break through problems with paper records.

And, I can't resist saying that we have a joke in my family that the very odd pattern in our eyes is proof that we are descendants of Frey. Now I just have to find proof that Frey had the same pattern ;)

I see that you need a time machine as much as I want one. B-)

I have full Y-DNA, MT-DNA and Autosomal DNA allready taken at FTDNA, and hav some 80 matches so far. I have also my mother, father, fathers brother, fathers sister and fathers cousin on FTDNA. And the strange thing is that we are all getting differents matches.

Again, it's good to see that we are more or less in agreement. I like it when historians and genealogists agree. ;)

The different matches are ofcourse on the autosomal test.

Have you tried GEDmatch.com, Remi? It's a way of connecting to people who have tested at other companies, by uploading your FTDNA (or 23andme) raw data. Very helpful for expanding the pool of possible matches.

I'm finding many unusual matches, with high resolutions. A guy whose immigrant ancestors came from Italy, when I have no Italian ancestry (except the Middle Ages). And a guy whose ancestry is all Caribbean back to the 18th century. (Maybe that one has something to do with my Cherokee ancestry.) And a woman in Sweden, but on my dad's side when he has no known Swedish ancestry. Tantalizing clues that there are still many interesting connections waiting to be discovered.

No, I haven't, Justin.

I'm on YSearch.org and MitoSearch.org.

GEDMatch is more comprehensive - obviously - but's it's a similar sort of tool. One of the really interesting things is that you can fairly easily look at "shadow" connections. That is, the connections your cousins' cousins have. For people trying to sort out an ethnic background, that kind of analysis can be very helpful.