More real, less illusion

Oh Justin, you are a snort. Levity is the new seriousness. Now we know that Old Somerled put the "stud" in "misunderstud". Up periscope! Its time to do a bit of scoping and probing.

For many years my address was 222 Willow Avenue, something in my genes maybe? 222 and me? Now that's a lot of extra chromosomes. I think I might be related to Pugnacious Ignatius Agnacius Polygamacius but so is Donald Trump. We probably both are mutations.

To be a bit Swift about it one might say, "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by the sign that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

I recall that on January 8 in the "Who's your Gateway" discussion you reminded me that: "when you are looking at an ancestor as far back as Robert de Pershale you probably want to do some scoping first.

He is your 25th great grandfather. Mine as well. In that generation we have a total of 33,554,432 ancestors. To put that in context, the population of England was only about 2.3 million people.

It's very likely that everyone with English ancestry is descended from him, whether they know it or not. If you do a bit of probing I think you will find that almost everyone on Geni with English royal and noble ancestry can link to him as a direct ancestor."

My scoping and probing indicate that 25th great grandfathers are a dime a dozen. Thanks for my morning chortle.

Adam of Eden

Adam of Eden is Marianne Katharina van Coevenhoven van Beelen's 118th great grandfather!

Marriane , I cant believe it. You are my 25th Cousin and Adam is my 81st grandfather and your 118th. I always wonder about the van Beelen line.

Dries, I dont why . This line are not van Beelen , this are van Coevenhoven-line .

Nun warum schriben sie dann van Beelen am ende .
gruzzen aus Namibia.

Hi Dries and Katharina - I have been reading all of the comments in this discussion - from before Christmas last year. I would like to compliment all of the participants on their contributions, and in humility I have to say that I have nothing important to add :-) Some examples have been mentioned about what would be reality and what is fake. To my mind the supposed lines that we may have back to Adam and Eve are examples of real fakes. If Adam is supposedly my 90th great grandfather it would mean that he lived about 90 times 30 years ago, i.e. about 2700 years ago, or about at the time when the Israelites were taken to Babilon (according to the Bible). That would be many centuries after Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish people left Ur of the Chaldeans. Obviously that's nonsense!
If I remember correctly Adam is shown on the Geni profile as having lived from about 3700 years BC to about 930 years thereafter, i.e. about 2800 BC. Obvious nonsense! And, let's face it - the world wasn't created 6000 years ago, as some people seem to believe!
It's a pity that there are such fake lines on Geni. Who are the 'trolls' who make up such fake lines? And what can we do to eradicate this?
Dries, our dear friend, Katharina, has a double barrel surname.
Härzliche Grüsse aus Südafrika!

Like anyone else, I find continual illusions. My 2xgreat-grandfather, for example, Joseph Dickinson, is alleged on many trees to have two children surplus to requirements, Richard and Margaret (though they lead nowhere, so no further complications). I "know" this to be false, because (a) all of his other children had two first names; (b) because his wife entered all of their names and birth-dates in the family bible; (c) because this bible was in the possession of one of his great-grand-daughters in the 1950s, and was seen by the biographer of one of his grandsons in c.1940, who counted the children; and (d) it was used by an aunt of mine when she was doing genealogy in the 1950s.

I also add "illusions", where there is no proof but where the evidence seems to me to be overwhelmingly probable. For example, I recently added a Mowbray marriage, c.1700, to an Ann Craster, daughter of Daniel, who existed then. He certainly married an Ann. The name Daniel appears (four times) among his mostly short-lived children. "Daniel Craster" was the first names of one of his grandchildren, and Craster reappears for at least the next hundred years. The Crasters (because the name is rare, and they were gentry, have a well-attested genealogy) fit geographically, and (for this one generation of Mowbrays, who called himself a gentleman) roughly socially. Ann was an eighth child and thus could expect to marry a slightly social inferior.

It all makes sense to me. But what I should have done (and will now do) is add a note that it is supposition, as I have done in cases which are closer to my supposed ancestry. The trouble is that sourcing takes time, which off our lines of [supposed] ancestry we do not always have.

Mark

The Adam and Eve lines are the classical examples of what happens when we enter what evidence we have: At some point we transition from "documents that we believe try to represent reality" to "documents that we believe try to represent a fiction (legend, story, whatever)". The transition often occurs in the middle of a sentence, and people argue endlessly (as seen here!) about where to put the dividing line.

The approach mostly taken on Geni has been to "source them all, and let the Future sort them out". For anything with a source, even though the source is fantastical, we enter it; when the source is clearly in conflict with other sources (such as "Brutus of Britain"), we truncate the chain and add a link in text.

I haven't found any hard rule that can be used; each cut deserves its own debate.

For most people worried about showing Adam on their tree, there is usually a link or 10 further down the tree where no source is entered. Such links are where we should spend our effort in tree-pruning.

Some time in the far future, I hope we can enforce "no source, no link" more generally. Until then - point discussions seems to be the only way to go.

Thank you for your comments, Mark and Harald. Harald Tveit Alvestrand, our Geni connection is a case in point relevant to the discussion initiated in December. According to Geni you are my 21st great grandfather's wife's 1st cousin 23 times removed. I am connected to your line via the Du Plessis family of South Africa and of France. Our pivotal connection is Walram III, duke of Luxembourg and his wife Cunégonde de Haute-Lorraine, daughter of Ludmilla of Poland. I can only say that my relationship path to you is correct up to the first Du Plessis who came to South Africa in 1688. I can say this because the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch Reformed Church kept proper records, and because excellent genealogists compiled my pedigree chart. With regard to the rest of my (alleged?) relationship path to you I can only say that I have no way of ensuring that it is totally correct. I have to rely on work done by other people, and I can only hope and believe that it is correct. As a lawyer I know that hearsay evidence is not admissible in a court of law, but here I have to rely on such 'evidence'. Of course I want to believe that the relationship path to you is true, and I am happy to accept it on face value. I'm not a sceptic, and I enjoy the 'game', the 'illusion', the 'fantasy' of believing that we are distantly related to each other :-) It's good enough for me!
At the same time I have to say that we are indebted to those people who are the real genealogical 'detectives' - people who can show to us that 'such and such a link' is not correct. Matters will get sorted out in due course!

And, Mark - you are my 17th cousin twice removed :-) I also know that I have similar relationships with most of the folks who have taken part in this discussion. We have bonds with each other, and this is special to me!

I like what Harald said:

"Some time in the far future, I hope we can enforce "no source, no link" .'

Perhaps we can eventually have a Geni for the above which is separated from the 'illusion/myth/legend' Geni? Just a thought!

Sadly this whole site has proved to be filled with illusion. I followed entries from Geni contributors to build my tree. A lot right, and likely a lot wrong. Also when "fictitious" (not true or real) persons, however, are able to be spliced into the mix, it makes it all less credible. This isn't just Geni either. All the sites I've checked have this credibility deficit. I'm about ready to go the DNA test route to see what it brings. Still, I've had a lot of fun following the ghosts.

It seems that the latest illusion is the one held by 52% of voting Brits who hold the illusion that Britain leaving the Eurozone is the panacea for future happiness and stability. I wonder if there is a higher percentage of genealogists among the Brexit Leavers, at least genealogists who have experience in believing that all the massive misinformation in the Geni databes is true? Wo is Britain. She is a good friend but we are now holding onto a drowning sister.

Since genealogy tends to be something engaged in by over-40s, it is indeed likely to be true that there is a higher percentage of Brexit Leavers rather than Remainers in British genealogists on Geni. I didn't have a vote (I've lived too long outside the UK), but have spent today feeling like it is a bereavement. I suspect, however, that I would have felt the same after a Remain victory (except, perhaps, an even narrower one); both campaigns behaved fairly badly, but there is a logic in the risks of Brexit which arises from the arrogance, complacency, and sheer teleological determinism of the Brussels elite, as well as from the divisions in British society (which seem to be even worse in some other EU countries, which is why Brussels must now try to punish us for leaving). As Timothy Garton-Ash (a Remain campaigner) says in today's Guardian, the Vote Leave arguments of a white English old woman, a Turkish hairdresser, and a Syrian baker all make sense from their personal experiences.

But there are many tragedies in genealogy; and also many new beginnings.
Of course I hope that Britain salvages a future from this; and that the EU finds some other response than the standard mantra of "this problem requires more Europe, not less" and therefore survives and prospers.

Your drowning "sister"

Mark

Drowning Brother Mark,
If there are "divisions in British society" it seems from the far view here in Canada that the greatest division is between British youth and British "over-40's". The over-40 crowd has just shoved its youth into a desperate situation which Britain can expect to erupt into considerable drama. If the over-40's do not yet see what they have unleashed perhaps it is because they are arrogant, complacent and have a focus on sheer teleological determinism. If Brits don't want to help their youth send them to Canada. They would be welcome here. I have a sense that youth will not appreciate the work of genealogiasts since they now realize that their immediate ancestors are to be scorned and rejected. Genealogy in Britain becomes a reminder for youth of the painful divide between generations.

I agree, sort of. The fact is that my generation have been very lucky, and are holding onto our gains at the expense of our youth. My son, at 19, faces a lot more uncertainty than I ever did.

Mark (still drowning in disbelief)

Justin Swanström mentioned the political influence on geneology where not only kings and lords but also the common workers listed their ancestors. Please do not forget the reentry of the dark middle age in contonental Europe by the Nazi party in Germany 1932-1945. During this period, it was required for every person living in Germany to set up a so called "Ahnentafel" which translated means Ancestry documdnt Since one or other ancestor was jewish or not of "Arian" parents, many such documents were faked. Thus it was possible to avoid exclusion of the right to work and even marry, or even avoiding the ultimate holocaust. These were the horrors introduced by Nazi madmen who in their wild fantasy thought that IQ and human properties could be measured by the mechanical dimensions of the face or diameter of the head, and that mixed marriages would destroy the "Arian" race. The only ever existing Arian people live in the south and east in Europe / Eurasia. They are not many people, and have once been interviewed on TV. They never sat their foot in Germany and find the old brown Nazi ideas to be insulting and disgusting. For these reasons people in Germany tend to be very careful when geneology is discussed. The quick grip to the "Ahnentafel" thus seems not to occur very often when doing geneology in Germany. So much for fiction in geneology.

We're having another fight over reality vs. illusions in this tree: Richard Lee, I

It is not likely that he was a son of "William Constable Lee" (who wouldn't have had, and was never recorded as using, any middle name at all). Despite the claims of supposed "descendants", there is no incontrovertible evidence that William ever married or had any children at all. (He had some kind of obscure relationship with a Mary Heath, whom he made his executrix and to whom he tried to leave his acreage in Maryland - his older brother Richard successfully contested the will.)

A "Richard Lee" and a "Mary Young" are listed among 102 headright claims by one Edward Hill in 1695, whereby Hill amassed to himself some 5000 acres in New Kent County. It has been hypothesized that they married and procreated, but proof of this has not as yet been found.

Y-DNA testing of supposed descendants shows discrepancies. Two Richard Lees with identical birth/death dates were born in different counties, married different wives and belong to different Y-DNA haplogroups; there are so many John Lees it's not surprising when (not if) they get all fershimmeled up; Jehu Lee, who was supposedly an "Uncle" , belongs to yet another family; etc. etc. etc.

Don't even think about trying to untangle the mess directly, or you'll be met with banshee shrieks and bared claws....

When i joined Geni, i was interested to learn that i had 5,000 ancestors. Then a curator cut this down to 500 ancestors. This concerns the so-called Davidic lineage.

The curator is not a member of my family, in the normal sense of that term, but as a curator, he has been granted more power than others, and what he says goes. The trouble is, in my family, this link to the Davidic lineage goes back to a time far, far earlier than the life of this curator. Now, who am i to believe? Many, many people in my family -- or someone not in my family?

You can call Adam and Eve a myth, all day long if you wish, but in my Reform Jewish family, the Bible was considered a genealogy text. No, we did not assert that Adam was made out of dust by God, merely that he and Eve were the farthest back people in our family tree. The "begats" in the Tanakh were seen as a stammbaum, and no more.

Therefore i do not conside rthe Tanakh a fantasy or a myth -- i consider it the best attempt at a genealogy that my family (the Jews) could devise and maintain.

I cannot recapture what Geni has destroyed.

If i had the capacity to do so, i would.

As it is, if Geni is a "game," i am no longer playing, and if Geni is "factual" it has just removed my people's long-held attempt to establish a stammbaum and has, without my consent, treated their facts as "myth," which i consider disrespectful.

Thanks for adding the DNA links. They are useless to me, however, since my tree has been pruned to the point that i will never see how i am related to these people.

No more blue lines. No more walking the tree.

It was fun while it lasted, but if a curator on a mission can disappear 4,500 people in my family lineage overnight, Geni is not the right place for me to be.

I didn't see a discussion about the disconnect. Start one.

Erica,

The discussion is here:
https://www.geni.com/discussions/154396?msg=1096040&page=1

Those who objected were overruled by fiat. I suspect that a thousand or more people were affected with no chance to comment. I only noticed it tonight.

Catherine Anna Manfredi Yronwode that discussion started in March, with Hatte saying "I would let a couple of months pass". The debate went on until the end of March, with much information pointing to an invention of the connection at a late date and no contradictory evidence; then a couple of months passed; then the relevant curator drew a conclusion.

I don't see how this could be handled any better.

As a project managrr in my real life, i can see how it could have been handled better:

A notice could have been sent to each person who would have been affected and they would have been invited to the discussion and included in the decision-making.

This is a collective, crowd-sourced tree. Let those who are affected have a say.

As it is, the impression i get is that a small cabal destroyed a huge portion of the tree, eliminated links that have have been in place and accepted at Geni, in books, and at other genealogical web sites.

Geni was a place where my family's story -- the story i was told by genealogists in my family -- was echoed in the family stories of many other members. Now the link has been broken, leaving a pile of jumbled and unconnected DNA in its place.

In fact, i only noticed that the link had been broken when the DNA feature was added and i saw a DNA link with a known surname and learned that the blue line i anticipated (no matter how long and tenuous) no longer existed. To say i was surprised was an understatement.

It took me several days of searching through these newly proposed-family DNA ties to find out that i am no longer elated to many of the people i thought i was related to. In fact, literally EVERY SINGLE DNA LINK is not a blue line.

As a known endogamous Ashkenazi Jew, this makes no sense to me.

What i saw before did make sense to me.

This does not.

I do not have the power to test and compare the before and after. That is, if i am now presented with a DNA link and my tree has been cut down from 5,000 ancestors to 500 ancestors, i have no way to even theorize how i am related to the person in question. I cannot build a "map" in my mind. I have become, essentially, an "orphan" and Geni does not serve my interests any longer.

On the other hand, if the link was reinstated, i could test my 225 autosomal DNA matches at Geni against the tree and see whether there are evidences of a DNA relationship to the (now-amputated) family line.

I think what was done was a premature decision, especially with the DNA evidence now so easily available.

I would like to see the link restored so that we can actually see what is to be seen.

DNA will tell the tale -- but only if we can see a match between the blue line and the chromosomal maps Without the blue line, we are unable to test the DNA against our family-told histories.

There are no proven descents from King David or from Adam and Eve. So say the majority of experts and scholars.

Even if you accept the biblical genealogies, there are no proven links to them. There are modern theories, yes, and very late traditions, but no evidence.

Autosomal DNA "washes out" after about 5 generations. It would not be possible to prove ancient links from the DNA people living today.

If there's no paper proof of a relationship you can use DNA and triangulation to see if you can prove a relationship, but that starts as a theory to be proved not a fact.

Most Geni users want the site to reflect proven facts. There are a few who prefer fantasy. It sounds like you're exactly where you should want to be, with a chance to work on proving the lines that have been only speculative until now.

Catherine Anna Manfredi Yronwode the discussion you referred to concluded with the deletion of exactly one link, between two profiles in the 1300s. DNA information has not been propagated by Geni to these profiles; atDNA generally doesn't give useful matching beyond 5-10 generations, and these profiles, being male, could not have contributed to your mtDNA line.

I do not understand the level of drama in your response.

Justin and Harald,

I do not agree that "DNA washes out at the 5th generation." This is demonstrably NOT true of mtDNA. For instance, my mtDNA haplogroup (h6a1a1a) was reported to have been found in a skeleton unearthed in Israel that was determined through carbon dating to be 3,000 years old, and the report was published in an academic paper.

It is also not true that DNA "washes out in 5 generations" when one is dealing with a highly endogamous population such as mine, and in which there have been two known adoptions, and an interest in finding how those adoptions figure into our family tree (e.g. were the adoptees family members or not)?

I am not trying to introduce drama.

I am simply asking for a return to a status formerly found at Geni.

Without this, Geni is of limited value to me.

I am fully cognizant of the fact that my ability to make DNA matches with known family trees has now been rendered moot and that Geni will no longer support my research, having branded it "myth."

I realize that this change was made without consulting those members of Geni who would be affected, and that those "on high" who have labelled our family trees "mythical" are at the controls.

I can tell you what Bennett Greenspan, who is the CEO of Family Tree DNA and is Jewish, said last month at a conference -- autosomal DNA can't be used to prove relationships beyond 200 years. I personally think with endogamy, this is slightly off, but by no more than 50 - 100 years at most.

I share NO DNA with my 3rd cousin. With a 6th cousin once removed I share a segment 32 cM long, which is very unusual but our village consisted of 40 families and my family accounted for probably 1/3 of the Jews in the village and we intermarried with cousins for 150+ years.

I'm a direct descendant of the Horowitz family, so I had a stake too, but I normally don't pay attention to Geni paths that are earlier than the 1500s. There just were not records in the vast majority of instances to make such genealogies believable.

I'd like to be a descendant of the Jews of al-Andalus, but that is likely provable with Y-DNA and may in fact turn out to be true.

Catherine,

You are misreading. I did not say "DNA washes out at the 5th generation." I said AUTOSOMAL DNA washes out AFTER ABOUT 5 generations." Autosomal DNA is not the same thing as mtDNA.

You are also misunderstanding the role of autosomal DNA in an endogamous population. You are correct it does not wash out as quickly, but the corollary is that is also far less useful as an indicator of relationships in historical times.

Finally, it is not at all true Geni will no longer support your research. Instead, Geni has provided you with a platform to do real research. You have a myth. You have a chance to prove it.