Charlemagne

Hello! Charlemagne is my 35th great grandfather.

Hi. Charlemagne in my 30th great grandfather and my wifes (Karen S Blair) 32nd great grandfather...

charlemagne is too a relative of mine, although distant , but he is in anyway. but how far it is I dont know. his son louis the pioux is my 35 th great grandfather. there is more further away as I know, but it is too far for my program.

Charlemagne is my 32nd great grandfather. : )

People, it is fun to see realtionship back to Charlemagne, but the links isn't trustworthy unless you add the sources to all of your links back to him, each one of you. Unless you can credibly prove that Charlemagne is your 30th something great grandfather by providing sourceable proof, he is not your 30th great grandfather, so, please, add the proof that your line is correct.

There are plenty of lines on Geni that are false and it is up to you that is claiming a kinship back to Charlemagne to prove that your line is correct.

If you cannot prove every link, your claim is false. Do not ever trust any work of others, that is the way to false ancestry.

i have paper on my descendants to charlemagne, do you ? I have. so dont talk about peoples descendants to charlemagne, you dont know one single thing. i get mad at people like you. be positive , not negative. bye

i suggest you who doubt that charlemagne is a ancestor of me or anyone else , can see on this page. my ancestors is there, adele of flandern and birger jarl magnusson. so i suggest you ask before you accuse people. http://koti.welho.com/mgardber/karl_den_store/karl_den_store.htm

:-) Ahh the game of genealogy :-)
" It's true that everyone's roots go back to the same family tree, he said. But each path to our common past is different, and reconstructing that path, using whatever records are available, is its own reward. "You can ask whether everyone in the Western world is descended from Charlemagne, and the answer is yes, we're all descended from Charlemagne. But can you prove it? That's the game of genealogy."
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/05/olson/2497/

Åsa, Remi might overstate his point a little, but the basic idea is true. There are many false claims, even still, even on Geni. I don't think he meant to say that you aren't descended from Charlemagne if you can't prove it. Obviously, blood relationships don't just appear and disappear depending on the records ;) But, if someone can't prove it, then it's just a fun story.

Of course, by the 12th century almost all of the kings and queens in western Europe were descended from Charlemagne, and those lineages are well-documented by historians. And, by the 16th century many noble families were descended from those same kings and queens. Also well-documented. And, there are hundreds of American immigrants whose descents from Charlemagne have been documented by historians and professional genealogists.

If someone can document a connection to any of those proven lines, it isn't necessary to personally have copies of all the Latin charters for each earlier generation sitting in your files ;)

One of the wonderful things about Geni is that we can all work together to document the good lines and discard the bad ones.

Åsa, no I haven't any paper or source to prove that Charlemagne is an ancestor of mine, but I'm not claiming that he is my ancestor either.

I didn't accuse any person specifically, I just said that if people claim that somebody is their ancestor, they must also have the sources that say that every link between themself and this somebody is true or at least probable.

Interesting page you are linking to, but to me it is worthless since there isn't a single source. I can not even guess at how trustworthy the information is because there isn't any sources attached to the information.

Sources are one of the most important aspect in genealogy. And if you don't have a source for a link between two people, then there will be doubts about the reality of the link.

One of the most common questions I get here i Norway, when I say that I am an genealogist, is "Are you related to http://www.geni.com/people/Harald-I-Halvdansson-%C2%ABFairhair%C2%B... " And the answer is probably yes, all norwegians are, but for most of us it is not provable, and therefore he shouldn't be in our genealogical database. He is not in my database, since I haven't found a link back to him that I trust enough.

i have paper for it as I said , a genealogist who has sent me that, and so on. I count that it is trustworthy. bye

who cares if it provable, I trust that it is , bye the way, you must be positive, i have found the persons after charlemagne, and know that it is real.

And if you have a source and your father was actually fathered by another man than your grandfather, your sources are worthless. Talk with Justin, he makes the excellent point that except for the most recent generations, much of genealogy is hypothesis and well-informed speculation.

As for Charlemagne, if you are of Western European descent, the statistics of genealogy and population growth are such that you are a descendant of his through multiple lines most likely.

I agree that I'm probable a descendant of Charlemagne, Hatte, and it is the same I showed with Harald Halvdansson, but I don't have any sources for my could be relationship back to him, nor have I looked for any, therefore he is not in my database, and the same goes for Harald Halvdansson. Statistics of genealogy and population growth is something that isn't going to look good in my genealogical database. :-) And I also try to keep hypothesis and speculations out of my database, I only write the speculations in a special area of my software, and not in the database itself.

Sorry, I'm not going to get tricked into a discussion about genealogy and DNA, but as Bjorn keep saying, you really don't know for sure that your father is you father, so that doubt is also in the recent generations.

Åsa, it is good that you have the relationship between you and Charlemagne on paper, hopefully the genealogists that made it for you has written the sources he used. But the internet page you linked doesn't have a single source, so to me that page is more or less worthless to use, because I can't check if the sources that are used to make the links between the persons are trustworthy. As a genealogist I like to view the sources myself, that way I can try to find out how trustworthy the source is.

When someone is publishing their genealogy, either in bookform or on the internet, other genealogists like to know which sources that have been used, so they can go back to the original source and see what it say, it is also a way to show other genealogists what you have found and where you found it, so they can prove what you are saying, if they want to. Genealogists care, to some degree, about wether it is provable or not, Åsa, and that is something you just have to live with.

I think if you have reliable ancestral links to European nobility/royalty, then you can usually assume ancestry down to Charlemagne...Still not convinced every European peasant descends from him though...Definately have to be convinced on that one!

The huge number of ancestors alone is a proof for that a lot of them must have been royal. Charlemagne is supposed to be my 31st great grandfather. On that level the number of ancestors is 2 in 33rd = 4.294.967.296 which is far more than the population at that time, round 210 million. A lot of the ancestors must be "duplicates", but there is also a more than fair chance that a lot of them were royalty. The farther you go back, the larger part of the population of that time are you related to. Also royalties.

Charlemagne is my 28th cousin 75 times removed. !! Who can understand that .. I don't but I like it ..

http://www.geni.com/path/Samuel+Cyril+Louis+Gaston+Austin+Le+Maux+i...

Why you're related to Charlemagne (and everyone else on the planet :-): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhtgINeaJWg&feature=share

Sharon, absolutely brilliant! :-) Thanks for that link.

But not everyone, even nobility is descended from Charlemagne...Sharon didn't you discover, that on the male du Plessis line, we are currently following, you couldn't find a link to Charlemagne......And I'm sure my Sorbian ancestors on one of my lines, never, got near him or his descendants....To me the mathematics don't add up...& it doesn't take that long to get back to Charlemagne...

I love that link, Sharon, and plan to share it widely. I always get bogged down when I try to explain it to people. This guy is much clearer than I ever could be ;)

Danielle, the point is that none of us have only royal ancestors. We all have many unknown lines where Charlemagne could be lurking unknown, like the lead zombie in a horror movie.

One point they never bring out though -- and here's the real strength of your point -- is that human mating is not truly random. The mathematical models hope to win the argument by force of numbers, but in fact most our ancestors married other local people.

So, I would expect that most of our (non-immigrant) ancestors would have lived and married right in their own tight geographic area. I read a study back in the 80s that claimed most human marriages throughout all of history have been between 2nd cousins (or closer). Note, that's all of human history, not just some little slice that someone wants to argue about ;)

I think the trick is, what does "most" mean in these two contexts? If one of my stray viking cousins served in the Varangarian guard and liked the area so much that he settled down in Turkey and raised a family, then a thousand years later a lot of Turks will have undocumented viking ancestry.

That's where the mathematics argument comes. With so many ancestors that far, they can't all have been Turks (or Sorbs, or whatever). Once in awhile someone has to have wandered in from somewhere else.

Yep enjoyed the link, was funny to see, thanks Sharon!

Here is a blog about Charlemagne (one of many)
http://sandwalk.blogspot.nl/2009/10/are-you-descedant-of-charlemagn...

but the youtube link is so much more entertaining and clear at the same time, brilliant indeed ... :-)

Private User, in that case, we (thanks to you for the help :-) found that the male duPlessis line that South Africans had been using to link through to Chucky was wrong. But for those of us with quite well-filled out trees there are 3 or 4 other documented direct links to him.

The Maths only seems improbable if you're not taking into account the exponential increases in the no of grandparents you have in every generation:
So If you go back 6 generations, you will find 64 direct great grandparents on that horizontal line (ie you have 64 gggX6grandparents).
By 14 generations back, there are 16 thousand people in that generation line from whom you are descended.

(of course, as the video points out - Bjart is right - there is definitely a lot of 'incest' that needs to have taken place too.)

So your Sorbian ancestors may not have got near Chucky - quite likely.

BUT the likelihood that at least ONE of YOUR ancestors wasn't Chucky,
-given that your ancestry is European,
-and calculating the number of people you will have been descended from by 30+ generations back;
-& taking into account the number of people alive at the time
is vanishingly small cuzzin. :-)

Ahh, sorry - cross posted with Justin and Jennie.

I just love http://www.geni.com/people/Justin-Swanstr%C3%B6m/6000000007278581048 (Justin)'s wandering lothario image. I have to go and find where I read about the 30% British Y chromosone predominance found amongst the Polynesian Islanders - (presumed to be the signature of passing sailors :-))

On the other hand, Dedo, Margrave of Neider-Lausitz, did get near the Sorbs, AND he's a descendant of Charlemagne.

http://www.geni.com/path/Charlemagne+is+related+to+Dedi+III+von+Nie...

After 1000 years, how many Sorbs might be descended from Dedo?

And Private what a really great article. I enjoyed it and would so re-post were it not for this unfortunately racist line "Meanwhile, ON HIS FATHER'S SIDE, we are all related to President Barack Obama since anthropologists have determined that all modern humans are descended from a common African ancestor."

???

Sharon,...Still struggling to find him on any of my lines...& I have looked!! Granted with some (confirmed?) lines, I've not got further back than, the 1550's..With South African lines going back into Europe, it is very hard to get beyond the generation that emigrated, which is frustrating...absence of information doesn't of course rule anything out!...There is a possibility of something on a Scottish line, I'm working on...but I can't say for certain yet...But regarding the main premise, I still remain a sceptic, but shall continue to follow this interesting discussion!

Blog is still actual Sharon, post your remark on it!

At the other side it is not what the article itself says it is quoted from the website of Genealogy of Presidents.

and if you read the comments/discussion following the article you see it raises questions and remarks...

Lol - Jennie - That's a good idea - I'm going to. I wonder if it will be published.

Danielle, as I see that you and I are 7th cousins (which appears to be the typical relationship of all those of South African French Huguenot descent,) I have NO doubt that you're a descendant of Chucky too, so there's hope!