Biblical Tree Merge

This is an open discussion for anyone who has comments or questions about my ongoing (2+ years) attempt to merge all of the 200+ copies (and counting) of the Biblical Tree on Geni.

Before you comment, though, please read the following description of this project (especially the FAQ) on the Geni Wiki: http://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Biblical_Tree_Merge and prior comments in this discussion.

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___________________One last VERY important request:___________________

Please do NOT merge ANY copies (yours or of others), into the main one, without FIRST sending me a message. This will also generally involve inviting me to join your Family Group. Due to requiring permissions from literally a couple dozen people, you will NOT be able to complete the dozen (or hundreds) of merges required by yourself. I already have those permissions, so I can and will gladly do this for you.

Thank you for your consideration,
Shmuel Aharon Kam
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I will tag a number of main biblical profiles here, so that this discussion becomes more visible. Feel free to tag your favorites as well.

Adam of Eden
Noah .
Patriarch Abraham
Patriarch Isaac / יצחק אבינו
Patriarch Jacob
Judah .
King David of Israel
Josiah ., 15th King of Judah
Zerubbabel 3rd Exilarch / זרובבל

Your implication that only Jewish descent peoples are related to Adam is rubbish. My parents' lineage goes back to European royalty and I believe In God's Word and the storyline of His Creations even though I believe the timeline spoken of is merely for chronology purposes and not to be taken as exact times. A "day" or "year" in the Bible is not to be construed as a day or year as we know it. Since there is no one alive today from those times it is merely supposition on anyone's part to "accurately" estimate any time element. If as the Bible (a book more widely read than ANY other) says Adam & Eve were the first man and woman (and somewhere obviously there had toe be a first then the entire human race is actually related to Adam not just your chosen 5000+

Eve, would you please point out where Shmuel said that only Jewish people are descended from Adam? The only thing I can find where he says anything remotely related is on the wiki: "Many Jewish families trace their lineages to the Royal House of David, and the Exilarchs that followed them." Obviously, that does not exclude any non-Jewish people from being descendants of Adam.

Especially as I START that page with "Many lines of European Royalty (and some of the Pharaohs) trace their ancient lineage all the way back to the biblical era, mostly through various descendants of Noah or Judah."

The 5000+ number has NOTHING to do with the actual number of relatives/descendants listed on Geni. The actual number is probably at least a million now, what with the constant merging of trees. What this number means is that Geni won't TELL you about more than 5000 of them. When Pro users (not me) look at that page they will see the number as 100,000+ !!! But that number is also an estimate! Above either of those number's Geni no longer keeps track of the exact count. It would be impractical to try and do so.

I thought david was my 90 ggf and now it shows 94

not all the tribes of Israel are Jewish a matter of fact 10 tribes left god and their Jewish father so god sent them away by the king of Assyria ask the lost tribes of Israel Jewish is a religion not a race the race is Hebrew 2 kings 17 I have lots of people in my family with the surname Jacob and Jacobs Meaning Israel

I am queries why don’t you use the tribe of Judah as the last name and King of Israel as the suffix?

I was looking though the sources on hear and didn’t see any references to the dead sea scrolls was there no new genealogy information found in them?

Shalom Dwayne Paul Stillwell,
regarding using "Judah" as last name, I prefer to be consistent across the entire Biblical Tree. So would I apply "Judah" to ALL members of the Tribe, or just the House of David? How far down the line should we use this?
Zerubbabel 3rd Exilarch / זרובבל is 20 generations from King David of Israel. Jesus is 43. Should I still use it?

It is clear that NO family names were in use back then. So literally the ONLY reason at all to have a value in "family name" (and birth name), is technical, due to two limitations:
1) The "Go To" feature in the Tree-view requires a family name, in order for a profile to be listed (fixing this is very far down Geni's to-do list).
2) Merging - Most of these popular profiles have been merged about 200-400 times EACH. Multiply that by 2000 profiles, and you get a LOT of merges. So if we have no values in these fields, then after the merge with the next profile that DOES have values, we get stuck with those, and either need the extra step to remove them, or get a rather inconsistent MESS.

Lastly, if I used a tribe name for profiles, then when looking for them in the tree-view, one would have to remember which tribe they belonged to in order to use the Go-To feature. Most people are NOT likely to know this off hand.

Shmuel
I am not trying to be critical I love that these Biblical genealogies are in hear. I understand that you have done a tremendous amount or work without including tribe names but it’s part of their identity. At this point I agree it would be more productive to merge duplicates then change last names. I do think everyone should have a tribe names just as you would a last name if you know it. I know this is probably not as black and weight as it seems like it would be. I thought The name of your tribe in the Bible was always passed down from the father and periodically branch off into new tribes that did the same This is just like our modern last names. I believe sometimes the bible refers to the previous tribe but the context is more than just individual identification in those cases. should there a limit to how many generations that a last name should be used?
Using King as a last name dose allow you to easily see a royal precession which is nice but it is a title and there is a field for that.

This is just an idea. It may not be valid but I am putting it out there for discussion. How about we put the (tribe) in the title field? Would that be simple enough without causing a lot of work Moreover, we include this listing in the title field as we merge the duplicates. I will support whatever solution that emerges.

I have a question, and pardon my lack of knowledge, but how do you know what tribe they all descended from except for the names written in the book of Numbers in the Bible. After the diaspera, and the 10 tribes were lost... were they able to keep their tribal names by passing them down or did many names get lost as many may have changed over the years and considering the locations people dispersed to/

So my question is are we even able to tell which tribe except for the those noted in the Bible?

I know for example, Ben Judah means son of Judah, but would that mean from the Tribe of Judah...etc.?

First Comment in this Discussion says "Before you comment, though, please read the following description of this project (especially the FAQ) on the Geni Wiki: http://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Biblical_Tree_Merge "

Followed that link -- Did not see really any description or a FAQ -- did see
" The following Project Page mostly replaces the need for this page." - "Project Page" is a link - BUT - clicking on it gets "Project not found".

Shalom Private User,
welcome to the discussion. This discussion was started years before Geni supported projects. That is why the opening comment links to the Wiki (now almost entirely defunct).

I have now fixed the link on the Wiki page, In any case, here is a link to the Biblical Project: http://www.geni.com/projects/Biblical-Tree/38

Thank you Shmuel for all the extremely hard work you've put into this. I love discovering new members of my family on here, and as i don't have the resources or permissions that you have, achieving what you have would be impossible for me. Thank you again, from Gloria

Hi Shmuel,

I have a question. a couple months ago the how are you related said that King David was my 88th gr-grandfather and now it is saying he is my 106th gr-granfather. Could you explain to me what happened and why it is different now. Thank you so much.

Shannon Rena Weiskittel, a LOT of the lines that attempt to connect the medieval period back to the Biblical Tree, are completely baseless. The majority of them are 20-30 **generations** too short. So while new users tend to add new copies of these lines, many of us try and keep track and CUT them. So that is what you have seen here: A bad lineage made the line look much shorter than it should be.

Hi Shmuel,

Thank you very much for clearing that up for me. Thank you for your hard work in preserving the lineages.

Hi Kam!

I have been out of circulation for a bit but will definitely update myself with the collecttive efforts of all members, especially yours which I think is a massive and delicate exercise which does not call for any kind interference from anyone, especially in messing around with established lineages.

Shalom.

I was taught Adam and Eve had 3 sons and 3 daughters

Children Biblical: Cain, Abel and Seth (three sons)
Extra-biblical: Awan, Azura, and or Aclima (three daughters)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luluwa aka Aclima

Cain and Luluwa were twins the first set of twins to be precise

geni clearly shows Adam and Eve the parents of "Seth .; Cain .; Azura .; Abel . and Awan ." making it 3 sons and only 2 daughters.

Laurie Lynn Brockbank,
you're right. One of the sisters has gone missing. It was certainly there before. I'll look into this.

The Book of Jubilees lists Awan as Cain's wife, but NOT his twin (rather as born a year later). Interestingly enough it does not mention Abel's wife at all.

Hello!
I was simply wondering if the Biblical Tree could be made into a closed tree, as so many people add bogus ties to Biblical characters and figures that I always find myself related in very interesting ways to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Methuselah, etc. I find that even the historical figures I'm supposedly tied to are dubiously related. I, for one, doubt that I am related to either Jesus or Hezekiah; even though both of them can be found in the historical record, I think enough people vandalize the site that the profiles should be made into a closed tree.

I am not saying to label all of the profiles as mythical, just some of them (i.e. Adam, Noah, etc.) and the rest could be made into a closed tree to avoid vandalism, (i.e. the kings of Israel, Jesus, etc.).

So say we all - or at least I do :-)

Trying to limit to 2 figures only - David and Jacob. Ok dont jump on me just yet. The family tree is also a teaching aide for my kids and explores historical connections especially with all the VIP blood relatives popping up. I'm also Adventist / Judeo Christian and subscribe to a complete time line of 6000 years since Creation. It is said Jacob was the first Haplo E member which is my haplo and then David- shows the path my ancestors took to get to Scotland across Georgia, Persia etc which tracks my FTDNA pathlines. So if you're gonna toss figures please at least leave David and Jacob !!! Have a Happy New Year to all

Hi Shmuel,

Thank you for all work you put into the World Family Tree, much appreciated,

I have a question,I am only amateur, not "pro" so there is many things I don't fully understand yet.

I have heard that, in theory at least, all people are descendants of Adam and Eve,
I found in Geni ancestors of Noah, Suris and Lectas,
I did search for more info/history of this couple but found nothing so far other than their profiles and descendants lists on Geni:

Baraka bint Samual

Baraka bint Samual

Noah’s maternal grandmother’s ancestry
Noah’s ancestors from his mothers side.

Mother of Noah : Ashmua / Betnos .
his mother → Baraka bint Samual
her mother → Samual ben Lectar
her father → Helen bint Benjaman
his mother → Benjaman ben Lectar
her father → Sis bint Suris
his mother → Suris .
her father (and Lectas her mother)

Suris and Lectas , husband and wife, have no parents and their family apparently not related to Adam and Eve/ not descendants of Adam and Eve?

Is this a lineage parallel to Adam and Eve or altogether separate linage,

Thank you,

Markku Sarubin

Markku Sarubin, we can't expect the Biblical sources to connect EVERYONE mentioned to Adam. This would not be of value, especially as humanity would be growing very quickly.

Shalom,
Shmuel, Thank you for your reply.
Thank you for your hard work in preserving the lineages.
Kind Regards,
Markku