Pondering...

Someone posted a thread on one of these forums
about "What do you 'Ponder' about".

I find myself thinking about my ancestors and
how many I had.

I have an uncle that can name the direct lineage
through the entire family tree to names as such
as William the Conqueror and Pocahontas.

Oftentimes I wonder if it is that rare that
someone would have direct bloodlines with some
historic people in the past.

Anyway, I thought I would just draw out a basic
'family tree' to see how many people "Would" be
related to me.

The only "assumption" I made was that if each
family had two children (Although we might guess
that the further you go back, the more children
the family had).

So if you start from me and go back....

My parents = 2
Their parents x 2 = 4 (my Grand Parents)
Grand Parents x 4 = 8 (my Great Grand Parents)
G-Grand Parents x 2 = 16 Great Great Grand
parents. (From now on, I will use 'G' to replace
"Great".
GGG Grand Parents x 32 = 64.

I have 64 Great-Great-Great Grandparents. That
is assuming that each generation is only having
two children making it to adulthood to reproduce
offspring of only two children per unit.

Now, if we go backwards in the numbers and take
those 64 GGG-Grand Parents X 2 children each
would equal 1024 decendents.

I guess what I'm trying to express is.. we are
'kin' to a whole lot more than we think we know.

Edit...

I forgot to add... assuming each generation is 20 years the GGG-Grand Parents would only take us back 120 years which comes out to ~1895.

We all have horse thieves,preachers,doctors.......in our familys.I think we would be surprised about just WHO is in our 'family'.My mother once told me that we are 'cousins' to Abraham Lincoln

And the way things are going today you would have to add the half brother and sisters for each generation.

If you continue the 2, 4, 8, 16 progression on backward, you will find that by the time you reach the 20th or 21st generation, you will be talking about a million or more direct ancestors.

In researching his family geneology for his book "Roots", author Alex Haley journeyed to Gambia in Africa to follow a lead that the primary character in his lineage, Kunta Kinte, had been captured into slavery there in the 1600s. He traveled for days into the back country to a remote village where he learned that there was an old man who served as a living repository of all his tribe's history.

The "griot", as he was called, had no other responsibility in the tribe than to be the "rememberer", as the tribe had no written language. He had started learning the tribal history as a young boy, and he was in turn training a succession of younger men and boys to take his place.

At Haley's request, the griot began "remembering", starting at the present and working backward. He couldn't fast-reverse---he had to recite the whole thing. He droned on with an incredibly detailed listing of marriages, children and deaths, as well as relevant events that had occurred in the lives of the people--somewhat like a reading of Chronicles I.

After many hours, the griot finally receded back into the 17th century and stumbled into the account of the day Kunta Kinte, Haley's ancestor, was captured and sold into slavery. The details provided by the old griot matched the sparse shreds of information Haley had already dug up.<br
>The book was an interesting read, but that one thing was the most fascinating part of it to me.

I'm a local history nut. If any family has been in this area for three generations, my wife is probably related to them. Her family tree doesn't branch - it circles. I can print out the descendants of Isaac Jarrett, and her name shows up three times. She is her own distant cousin. I'm glad - I wouldn't want it any other way. I love her and she's perfect, in my view.

We started with Adam and Eve, then restarted with Noah and his un-named wife. We're all cousins.

I have a close friend who is a direct descendant of Anse Hatfield.

The furthest I can trace any of my ancestors is 1624 on one side and 1735 one the other side.

One of my mothers ancestors was among the very first group to settle in northern NY.

I like to ponder about my ancestry too. I was always left to believe that our family were German. Well it turns out that our last name (Fure) is from Norway. It means a clearing in the forest. Anyway, I did a search on the internet and came up with this. My GG Grandfather came from Bavaria. He traveled across Europe to Belgium and boarded a ship. Landed in New Orleans. Then made his way up the Mississippi river and settled in SW Wisconsin. He was a farmer and master carpenter. How the family made the trip from Norway to Bavaria is a mystery to me. I tried to back track from Bavaria ,but my German isn't that good. Plus I found out that a lot of the old documents were written in an old German language, which you have to study for many years to understand. So that is where my search has to end. It's fun to think about though. Maybe my family ancestors were part of the Viking hordes that invaded Europe. (?)

I am the 4th generation to own our family farm. It made "Century farm" status in 2006.

But before that farm, my ancestors just lived two farms away, to the south. I couldn't buy that farm, but did buy the 50 acres to the south that borders and now joins up my creek farm to the old home place.

History is very interesting. Especially when you can make a connection to yourself.

logic says... if you go far enough back, we are all much more related than you think... If not related, we probably lived next door to each other at some point.

My daughter traced my roots back to the Huns, in the Black Forest of Germany. Whoopee!

Shaking the family tree too hard can result in things falling out we had as soon never seen.

Daughter traced some of ours back in the far distance to a fellow in Salem, who's sister in law was one of the Salem witches. Not sure I wanted to know any more about that...

Gee my step mother in law was a grand niece of Anse Hatfield, as well as kin to John Moses Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Seems one of her uncles was a former governor of West Virginia (Henry D. Hatfield)

I was always under the assumption that the Bakers I am descended from were German, turns out they were probably English. One of my Mother's grand fathers claims we are descended from Thomas Stone (signer of the declaration of independence) and Thomas Paine (wrote the pamphlet common sense), at the same time we know a few of the Winslows had to go to Canada after the Revolutionary War as they remained loyal to the crown and weren't welcome in their home towns anymore (bet thanksgiving and Christmas were awkward). The Winslows I am descended from settled in what is now coastal Maine (it was Massachusetts when they got there), yet I have found records of a marriage between a Baker and a Winslow (in Maryland, also were Thomas Stone was) in the early 1800's, heck my parents may be distant cousins or to look at it another way my siblings could also be my cousins.

My Great Great Great Great Great Grand Mother was Mary Gore, Her mother was Ruth Baker, It appears My Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather married a cousin, (worse I may be related to Al Gore)

A few years ago while on vacation with the kids we visited Hannibal Missouri and Springfield Illinois. It was pointed out that Neither Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln have any descendants currently living.

No I'm not my own Grandpa

when my Grandpaw was a kid he spent a lot of time in Devil Anse's house with the Hatfield kids. That would put your step-mother in law at about the same time frame. My WV Baker family traces their roots back to Bingham-on-the-Rhine, Germany. We are related to Newton P. Baker, Sec. of War in the early 1900's. The town of Baker WV (eastern panhandle) is named after his branch. My immediate family comes from John Baker, a Revolutionary War veteran who brought his family down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to found Baker Forte, near Wheeling.

poor old Europe was invaded by many hordes. Many mercenary fighters from Norway were sent to fight the Ottoman turks in Barvaria, by the Swedish, who had defeated Norway. Really good details are in the book 'The Encyclopedia of Military History' by DuPuy & DuPuy.

(quoted from post at 07:43:01 01/21/15) poor old Europe was invaded by many hordes. Many mercenary fighters from Norway were sent to fight the Ottoman turks in Barvaria, by the Swedish, who had defeated Norway. Really good details are in the book 'The Encyclopedia of Military History' by DuPuy &amp; DuPuy.

Click to expand...

That's interesting. I'll see if I can find a copy of that book.