Charlemagne - 35th Great Grandfather?

Most people of European descent are related to Charlemagne. It's math: https://www.theguardian.com/science/commentisfree/2015/may/24/busin...

the study in Nature that is cited in the article makes no such claim or anything close to it - so, the guardian article is pure journalistic excess and also preposterous. 100s of thousands or milllions maybe. not "Most" . That just keeps getting repeated I guess because people like repeating stuff. It is bizarre.

Everybody ends up being the ancestor of everybody or nobody, sooner or later. At some stage, it can be millions, but this can only be temporary. It's not possible to sit on millions indefinitely.

To be a non-Charlemagne descendant, every single one of your ancestors has to be a non-descendant. Not one single Carolingian ever snuck into your tree anywhere ever.

@Kaylene Russell -- now that is interesting...

Sigurd "Snake-in-the-eye" Ragnarsson is your 36th great grandfather.
You
→ John Earl "Johnny" Jones
your father → Lewis "Babe" Jones
his father → James D Jones
his father → Isaac Newton Jones
his father → William Robert Jones
his father → Martha Stain Jones
his mother → William Daniel Craig, Sr.
her father → Grizell Craig
his mother → Col. William Crawford
her father → Robert David Crawford
his father → Robert Crawford
his father → 12th Laird of Auchinames and Crosbie Patrick Crawford
his father → William Crauford, 11th Lord Of Auchinames
his father → Agnes Crawfurd
his mother → Margaret Stuart of Glenderston
her mother → Sir John Stewart, Seigneur d'Oison
her father → Margaret Christian Montgomerie, Countess of Lennox
his mother → Alexander Montgomerie, 1st Lord Montgomerie of Auchterhouse
her father → Agnes MacDonald of the Isles
his mother → Eupheme MacRuaridh (Macruari)
her mother → Ruaidhri mac Ailein
her father → Alan mac Ruairi
his father → Ruaidhri mac Raghnaill, Lord of Kintyre
his father → Ragnall mac Somhairle, Lord of the Isles
his father → Ragnhildr Óláfsdóttir, of Man
his mother → Ingebjörg Hákonardóttir
her mother → Hakon "The Imperious" Palson, Jarl of Orkney
her father → Jarl Paul Thorfinnsson, av Orknøyene
his father → Thorfinn 'The Black' 'The Mighty' Sigurdsson, II Jarl of Orkney
his father → Sigurd "the Stout" Hlodvesson, earl of Orkney
his father → Hlodvir Thorfinnsson, earl of Orkney
his father → Grelod Duncansdatter
his mother → Groa Thorsteinsdottir
her mother → Thorstein "the Red" Olafsson
her father → Ólafur "Hvíti" "The White" Ingjaldsson, King of Dublin
his father → Ingjald "The White" Helgasson, Petty King Of Ireland
his father → Tora Sigurdsdottir
his mother → Sigurd "Snake-in-the-eye" Ragnarsson
her father

Shortest Blood Relationship:

Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson is your 30th great grandfather.
You
→ John Earl "Johnny" Jones
your father → Lewis "Babe" Jones
his father → James D Jones
his father → Isaac Newton Jones
his father → William Robert Jones
his father → Martha Stain Jones
his mother → William Daniel Craig, Sr.
her father → Robert Thomas Craig
his father → Jean Janet Stuart
his mother → Archibald Moses Stuart
her father → Colonel Charles Stewart
his father → Charles Stewart, of Ballintoy
his father → Lady Grissel Stewart
his mother → Jean Blair
her mother → Margaret Cunningham of Glengarnock
her mother → Sir William Cunningham of Glengarnock
her father → Lady Elizabeth Edmonstone
his mother → Mary of Scotland, Countess of Angus
her mother → Annabella Drummond, Queen Consort of Scots
her mother → Sir John Drummond, 11th of Lennox
her father → Margaret Graham, of Kincardine
his mother → Annabella of Strathearn
her mother → Robert, 4th Earl of Strathearn
her father → Lady Matilda d'Aubigny, Countess Consort of Strathearn
his mother → Matilda (Maud) FitzRobert de Clare de Senlis
her mother → Robert FitzRichard de Clare
her father → Richard FitzGilbert de Bienfaite, Lord of Clare and of Tonbridge
his father → Gilbert de Brionne comte d'Eu
his father → Geoffrey de Brionne, Count of Eu & Brionne
his father → Richard I, 'the Fearless', Duke of Normandy
his father → William "Longsword"
his father → Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson
his father

###

Shortest In-Law Relationship:

Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson is your 24th great grandmother's husband's third great grandfather.
You
→ John Earl "Johnny" Jones
your father → Lewis "Babe" Jones
his father → James D Jones
his father → Isaac Newton Jones
his father → William Robert Jones
his father → Martha Stain Jones
his mother → William Daniel Craig, Sr.
her father → Robert Thomas Craig
his father → William Craig
his father → Margaret Lindsay
his mother → Patrick Lindsay, of Wolmerston
her father → John Lindsay, of Wolmerston
his father → 1st Laird of Wormiston Patrick Lindsay
his father → John Lindsay,
his father → William Lindsay of Pytostone
his father → Patrick Lindsay, 4th of the Byres
his father → John Lindsay, 1st Lord of the Byres
his father → Christiana Keith
his mother → Sir William Keith, Great Marischal of Scotland
her father → Sir Edward de Keith of Sinton
his father → Barbara Seton
his mother → Jonet Giffard of Yester
her mother → Sir Roger Giffard, of Clovelly & Yester
her father → Gervaise Giffard
his father → Robert Giffard
his father → Lady Rohese FitzRichard de Clare, Contesse
his mother → Hugues I de Dammartin, comte de Montdidier
her husband → Constance de France, heritiere de Dammartin
his mother → Robert II Capet, "the Pious" king of the Franks
her father → Adélaïde d'Aquitaine, reine des Francs
his mother → Adèle of Normandy
her mother → Gange-Hrólfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson
her father

Trivia:

Chuck Norris is your fifth cousin once removed.
You
→ John Earl "Johnny" Jones
your father → Lucy Jane Jones
his mother → Jim R. Norris
her father → John Roland Norris
his father → Billy Norris
his father → Thomas Gilbert Norris
his father → William Simon Norris
his brother → Samuel Norris
his son → William S Norris
his son → James Henry Norris
his son → Ray Dee Norris
his son → Chuck Norris
his son

Timothy Lavon Mitchell-Jones

Wow at Chuck Norris. So cool.

He is my 34th great grandfather. William the Conqueror is my 25th great grandfather, King Edward I,II, III are my 22, 21, and 20th great grandfather, Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt, one of the founders of the Netherlands is my 11th great grandfather and Pieter Stoutenburgh, original settler of New Amsterdam/York is his grandson and my 9th great grandfather among many discoveries.

Wait until you find the ancient Alien, :)

Anybody else able to trace back to Adam and eve?

Some Genealogist with a sense of humour...

So have my doubts on accuracy of system, sure I'm not the only one.

Robert Philip Andrew Cooper-Bell Who is the ancient Alien?
I have gotten back to Adam and Eve through a few different routes, I literally spent days going back through time checking one of them out. Had the bible out and every historical source I could find,

It's not possibel to verify a line back to biblical times. There are to many unverifiable links between year 0 and year 1000.

I think it is safe to say that virtually all people of European descent have Charlemagne as a multiple ancestor. Most cannot show the connections, however.

The number of our 24th great-grandparents would have exceeded the population of Europe at the time they lived (about 60 million in the year 1200), if there were no duplication.  The number of our 29th great-grandparents would have exceeded the population of the world during their lifetimes (about 500,000,000 in 1000).  And the number of our 37th great-grandparents (back to about 700-800) would have exceeded the number of people who have ever lived (about 108,000,000,000).

Of course, the actual number of any generation of ancestors is less than the possible mathematical maximum, because most of our distant ancestors have multiple connections to us.

My recent ancestry is probably more homogenous than most people’s. As far as I can tell, my known ancestors since 1400 were all born in what is now Poland (Kashubes and Poles), although some had names of foreign origin. From 1200 to 1400, my ancestors also included a number of apparently Germanized Slavs from Pomerania, Prussia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Rugen, as well as Poles Kashubes, and some ethnic Germans. Before 1200, however, the list of known ancestors covers essentially all of Europe, from the British Isles, to Scandinavia, Kiev, Byzantium, Hungary, the Balkans, Italy, Spain, France, the Low Countries, German States, and Western Slavs.

According to Geni, Charlemagne is my ancestor through at least 7 different paths, with the closest being a 31st ggf and the furthest a 37th ggf. If I look harder, I might be able to discover additional paths. Because my known ancestors represent only a minute fraction of my actual ancestors, I expect that I have additional lines of descent from Charlemagne that Geni does not show. I also expect that I have similar lines of descent from people who have been forgotten by history, from peasants in Bohemia, fishermen from Denmark, serfs from Germany, etc.! And I think that others of European descent have the same sorts of relationships.

Joseph, ofcourse we are and have all of those type of ancestors that you mentioned, but that is not the point in our genealogy. In genealogy we need names, when and where they lived and verifiable links between the persons in our tree. Every link and every fact has to be proven more or less beyond any doubt before they get published publicly. Our theories we can talk about in forums and have in our own private databases, but not show them as public trees. That is why I said it is not possible to verify a line back to biblical times, because it isn't, and claiming such is to me just foolish. Having unproven theories in public trees as Geni, MyH, Ancestry, FS (and more) or on private internetpages will just spread false genealogies and that is something we should avoid at all costs. There are already to many of these false genealogies spreading out there that we are trying our best to refute.

Charlemagne es mi 37 bisabuelo mi linea es por su hijo Hugo, Archchancellor of the Empire y luego por Petronilla of Burgundy

Remi Trygve Pedersen Can you give me a link to the forum(s)? I have many theories and conjectures that I obviously cannot put in Geni directly, but I would like to see what other people think of them. Also, there is a website that has a lot of unproven family trees: fabpedigree.com

Silas Grant no, you have to search for them yourself.

To be sure - doing the math, if all your ancestors were mutually independent, then the number of your ancestors equals the population of Europe in the 1400-1500 period, depending a bit on when you were born and the average age of your ancestors' parents when that ancestor was born. In other words, if you're of European heritage you are mathematically likely to be related to Everyone in Europe before 1400 [note that the population of Europe from 1400-1500 stayed fairly constant]. Saints and sinners, princes and peasants, the whole lot. The further back you go, the more certain it is that you're related. Charlemagne was crowned in 800 AD.

It's interesting to look up discussions of the 'MRCA', or "Most Recent Common Ancestor" if you like a little math with your history.

Even better - go to the Magna Carta Sureties and Witnesses Project here on Geni.com [see https://www.geni.com/projects/Magna-Carta-Sureties-and-Witnesses/6 ] and see how many of them are credibly your ancestors. The Magna Carta had 25 sureties; through Geni I can trace 14 of them as direct ancestors, 8 as blood uncles of a direct ancestor, one 2nd cousin of a direct ancestor, and one 3rd half-cousin of a direct ancestor. Of the direct ancestors, there is one 21ggf, one 22ggf, eight 23ggf, three 24ggf, and one 25ggf; of the uncles, one 21gu, four 22gu, two 23gu, and one 24gu. The 2c0r is of my 21ggf; the 3hc0r is of a 21 ggm. In other words, 14 direct ancestors plus 8 uncles gives 22, and two cousins makes 24 of the 25 sureties traceable with documentation of sufficient quality for Geni. And all this comes down through one "gateway" ancestor born in 1810 [my 2ggf], who also traces back to three Massachusetts minutemen in the American Revolution and two [or three] signers of the Mayflower Compact.

In the context of the recent discussion, the Mayflower and Revolutionary connections are more "unique" than the connection to Charlemagne...

But that one is just fun!

Charlemagne is your 34th great grandfather.

You

→ Patricia
your mother

→ Anna Gertrude Post
her mother

→ Frederick Augustus Post
her father

→ Edwin Emulous Post
his father

→ Oliver Post, Jr
his father

→ Oliver Post
his father

→ Mary Post
his mother

→ Philip Chase
her father

→ Lydia Chase
his mother

→ Mary Challis (Sargent)
her mother

→ William Sargent, I
her father

→ Richard Sargent
his father

→ Margaret Sargent
his mother

→ Agnes Anne Gifford
her mother

→ Elizabeth Master
her mother

→ Stephen Guillame Payne
her father

→ Sir John Payne
his father

→ Lord John Payne I
his father

→ Joan de Tyas
his mother

→ Alice le Tyas
her mother

→ Sarah Thornhill Tankersley
her mother

→ John de Thornhill
her father

→ Alice de Quincy
his mother

→ Matilda de Senlis
her mother

→ Matilda of Huntingdon, Countess of Huntingdon & Queen consort of Scotland
her mother

→ Judith de Lens, Countess of Huntingdon
her mother

→ Lambert II, count of Lens
her father

→ Mathilde of Boulogne
his mother

→ Lambert I, count of Louvain
her father

→ Régnier (Reginar) III, comte de Hainaut
his father

→ Reginar II, count of Hainaut
his father

→ Reginar I "Longneck", Duke of Lorraine and Count of Hainault
his father

→ Princess Ermengarde de Lorraine
his mother

→ Emperor Lothair I
her father

→ Louis I, The Pious
his father

→ Charlemagne
his father

"...traceable with documentation of sufficient quality for Geni..."

Geni does not require documentation, it is just a software platform, as long as you are not breaching their Terms of Use they will let you put pretty much whatever you want on the site.

So just because something is on Geni doesn't make it true.

Charlemagne is my 28th great grandfather, turns out I have a few blood relatives that are Royal including great grandparents from down the line on the thrones of England, Scotland & even France, quite blown away by it all actually considering I am just a commoner from little ol NZ

Alex Moes, yes just being on Geni doesn't make it true, and to a degree that applies to some "documented" sources where somebody made a wrong conjecture that was allowable with the information they had. What's the probability that any given link in the chain is wrong?

If you do the math for the case where every connection has a 10% chance of being wrong, then by the time you get seven generations back there is over a 50% chance the chain is wrong. If there's only a 1% chance each link is wrong, you have a 50% chance that a chain going back 68 generations is right. So most recent documentation is pretty good - US Census records seem close to the 99% correct level - but older sources may be closer to that 10% wrong level.

At least Geni tries to make a stab at 'quality control', with the Master Profiles system for example, and the checks when identifying profiles to be the same.

On Geni, whenever I open any profile, it tells me "No path found to _____" and I want to fix this. Can someone tell me what the problem is and what I should do?

The problem is that those profiles ar not connected to you in any way, so either you aren't connected to the World Family Tree (WFT) or the profiles you open aren't connected to the WFT.

Silas, I'm getting the same message opening your profile, which probably means that you are not connected to WFT.

Okay, I just checked my tree and apparently Abel Grant, my ancestor, was disconnected from his son William. Thank you for telling me.

Fixed. William Robinson Grant Son of Abel Grant, Jr. & Nancy Grant - needed merging.

Thank you! I just checked, and I am reconnected to the WFT

@Charlemagne-35th Great Grandfather

Pipin III King of the Franks my 36th ggf
Charles Martel my 37th ggf
Pepin II "the Fat" d'Heristal, Mayor of the Palace of Australia
my 38th ggf
Ansegisel de Metz my 39th ggf
Saint Arnaii Bishop of Metz my 40th ggf

also according to Geni I am blood related to Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Mary Magdaline, Catherine the Great Empress of
Russia, Paul I of Russia just to name a few.

How do I determine my MRCA.(s) responsible for linking me to all of the Royale Families. (living and deceased Royales)

Gedmatch kits YQ6082323 and GG7201691, Haplo L1c2b1, Y haplo R-m269

I am DNA tested with results on Ancestry, 23&Me, My Heritage, FTDNA Autosomal and Full Mitochondrial Sequence, CRI Genetics. Please advise. Constructive advice Thank you. Vanessa *HOSEA* Brooks

How can I determine who my MRCA is that links me to so many

It's amazing when you go that far back how many people you will be related to. I've been told it's best to stop somewhere around the 15th century to make it all credible. I'm related to Charlemagne as well, as I'm sure just about everybody who is fascinated with finding out who they're connected to. As I recall, that was somewhere around 800 A.D. So it's been a while.

According to Geni, Charlemagne is my 32th great grandfather. I like this idea even if i dont have straight evidence about this. I cant compare my DNA with his DNA

The theory is that anyone with European ancestry is most likely related to Charlemagne. He had lots of children!!!