Genealogy Chat

Marjorie Wow 300 generations - must be a very big chart!!! Even if the individual boxes were really small (say 1cm wide), then at generation number 300, the chart would need to be over 2*10^85 kilometres wide (that's a 2 with 85 zeros!). Trouble is, we'd need a much bigger universe to lay it out in, as ours is only about 1*10^23 kilometres big (that's a 1 with 23 zeros)... Implection - great word! I still prefer the phrase 'Pedigree Collapse' though as it is rather neatly self-explanatory, even if it does have somewhat apocalyptic overtones! Richard

I was astonished and very entertained to read on another thread that you can download or buy a chart giving room for 300 generations!!! Richard! Your 'pedigree collapse' phenomenon has a word to describe it - its 'IMPLECTION'.( I have been bandying this word around the boards at every given opportunity but no-one is a bit impressed - I am going to get someone to acknowledge my cleverness in knowing this word if I have to die in the attempt!) I read somewhere that the average distance between the birth-place of couples marrying in 1700 was less than five miles and had only increased to 15 by the year 1800. So, not counting the odd passing soldier, those of us who have our ancestral homes inland are probably so inbred that it defies belief. Marjorie

I know just what you mean, but it is good for a laugh, when emailing a distant cousin with details of our rellies once I started laughing I couldn't stop, it ran like this. Harry married his cousins daughter, while his cousins brother married his Aunt, (these two were cousins), I must stop started to laugh again but you get the gist of it. Irene

I should have six webbed toes and one eye, because in one village I think I'm related to everyone several times over. There's even a chance that one of my not-so-direct ancestors' marriages was a little bit too close for comfort: but I doubt they realised it, it took me long enough! It's probably reduced my total ancestors by about a quarter.

Lovely Bob. I suppose we could all say we have the family Bible.

Someone I met recently was boasting that his family records go back to Ancient Times ... 'but unfortunately, they were all lost when the Library of Alexandria was burnt.' Just to shut him up I told a fib, and said '... Oh what a shame !! Of course, our records were all lost in the Deluge !'

Blimey Richard, I hadnt even thought about that! Just goes to show, we are all one big dysfunctional family when you come down to it.

And if you did manage to get back to approx 800AD (48 generations), you would have 281.5 TRILLION ancestors in that generation!!! Problem is - that is several million times more than the population of the Earth at that time! The solution of course is that those 281.5 Trillion names would not all be different, due to intermarriages (cousins marrying, etc). This leads to the phenomenon known as 'Pedigree Collapse', whereby the number of DIFFERENT ancestors in each prior generation actually starts to decrease at a certain point back in time. There is an interesting article on this subject at: www.generations.on.ca/genealogy/pedigree.htm On my tree, I start to incur pedigree loss at just five generations back (gt-gt-gt-grandparents). This is because my gt-grandfather married his 1st cousin, and therefore I only have 30 G3-grandparents instead of the full set of 32, 60 G4-Grandparents instead of 64, etc etc. Nevertheless, that still leaves me with plenty of unexplored branches to research! Richard

The mind Boggles, and then coming back to the present there is up to five times as many ! jamie

256 couples, including you. - go back one more and you're at 512 couples- over 1000 direct ancestors.....

LMAO!!!! And they say computer games are addictive:) I'm stuck in 1618:(

Hey Geoff Maybe he's with my Patrick!!! Ann

I'm still looking for Adam's father.

It never ends Jamie,

Sorry got bored, I have got back 8 generations on my tree and have found one couple in the mid 1700s, but just worked out that I should have 256 directly related couples that far back. Its taken six months and I still have 255 to find ! Not many then eh When will it ever end ? jamie