
He's my 19th GGF. So, using 19 generations at an average of around 3 kids surviving to procreate each time, we get to a figure of around 1.7 billion living descendants today. Earlier on they had many more kids although many died young. Essentially most people alive today are descendants of some or other ancient nobility lines as they were the ones that survived. Of course it's far more interesting when your 3rd or 4th GGF was a duke or some other minor royalty, or even just an awesome eccentric, because the world is so much the better with eccentric people.
What I've really enjoyed about Geni is not the fact that we're all descended from these lines but the interesting relationships that you can uncover between characters from history. For instance, I've been able to prove the link between Templars fleeing France circa 1307 (when the Brus was in hiding in the Isles), to the emergence of speculative Freemasonry circa 1640's in Scotland, and later in England with the founding of the Royal Society. The insights are fantastic, such as being able to see where all the wealth and power went. It's an honour and privilege that almost all great uncles were Tempar Grand Masters (they never had children of their own). All founding Freemasons circa 1640 were great grandfathers (Kings and Dukes of Scotland, England, Denmark, France etc.). Almost all signatories to Magna Carta, Declaration of Arbroath were GGF's whilst signatories to Declaration of Independence were cousins. There is no doubt that something in that Scottish enlightenment gene helped forge our modern society as we know it today....
Robert I the Bruce, King of Scots I the Bruce, King of Scots,
Is my 20 GGF.
Great to see this discussion happening......
Regards....
Hi Cheley, not to worry - alas nothing for it but picking through every generation until you are very confident that your path is your path. That means documents, headstones, birth records, land deeds, paintings, letters, scrolls, trees etc etc. Tiring business, my cousin and I have recently done this. Good luck.
Hi Bevan, agreed. All fascinating. I've recently read some really amazing stuff (both ancient and near term) about my line. I am lucky that so many have external parties have had an interest. Feeling somewhat inadequate these days lol.
David, you're correct. It's documentation. It's what I'm concentrating on. Uploading all documents for verification. I'm not sure if everyone understands what references on the profile are for, it's not for just referencing another online ancestry trees - that doesn't verify information of a birthdate, residency, marriage. For our profiles when we get in the 1800s, 1700s and farther back in time, we look for Vestry Records, land deeds, Probated Wills, Etc., it's unusual when I actually come upon a profile with proper documentation. Just a lot of people upset why their ancestry tree get cut out if it were well documented the mistake wouldn't happen on either side. Improper cutting of the tree, or merging the wrong file. :)
I've stopped adding so many profiles, just a few around the lineage that was already in to help from bad merging in the future.
Cheryl was in a quandary, the Royal Lineages do change when they find problems or perhaps someone tried to merge in a GEDcom..
Hi - thanks Cheley for your enthusiastic responses.
The reason my tree is not visible in Geni is because I built it in Ancestry.com. I use geni to help illuminate uncertainties and confusions in the tree. I feel like a trespasser!
I am beginning to see the answer to my question may prove to be elusive. One approach would be to map out the entire tree - taking your initial generations and continuing to present day - then exclude the non-living members...too much effort I believe. I could estimate it as per Robert Bevan's post above. I suppose I thought there may be some prior attempts at this question and would not be surprised if there's a branch of genealogy statistics somewhere in the online universe.
Believe a very small amount of what you see here. Anything before 1700 is suspicious.
People would add their dog to the family tree if it connected them to royalty.
It is very difficult to make a solid connection way back. Mary Polk is my possible connection to Robert the Bruce. There is absolutely no hard facts from her to Bruce. In fact the books from that time show she is not in his blood line. I don't know who put her back in the tree but she was taken out. Stop dreaming whoever did.
I love these kinds of questions.. But even if we knew the answer in a plus or minus range, we'd have to factor in pedigree collapse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse
So say that, for purposes of illustration, there are 10 million direct descendants of our Robert I the Bruce, King of Scots living today... I'd say most are descended from him through multiple branches.... thereby reducing the 10 million to far-far less.
My word, I've plenty of this in my recent tree just going back 10 generations, and I still only have 10 toes.. :)
Hi Wendy, the application of arms/titles to a tree or historical document is very strict in Scotland. I believe that isn't always the case in the rest of Europe. Adding an arms to a known person within a proven tree is fitting ofcourse. To retain the arms within the tree (on a formal basis) you must be a validated hier or cadet of the clans. Some of the arms and titles have passed ofcourse and there's a chance you could be essentially claiming something that is not yours to claim. That being said, investigate and see.
Incase anyone is interested there are many books upon Robert an his ancestors an descendants.They are not genealogy books but history books an are accurate and you learn alot about him.This way you have some documentation as to your connection. the same goes for William the Conqueror I am reading The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris
which is proving so helpful an I have a copy of the Domesday Book which is some help.