Although the programme skipped over most of the details, Dyer’s descent (allowing for quite a few uncertainties) is actually an excellent example of downward mobility in action. It doesn’t even require marrying down or illegitimacy. All it requires is for most generations to do slightly less well than the previous one. So, the line of Dyer’s ancestors from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century went from a major landowner descended from nobility → clergyman → surgeon → weaver → dance instructor → merchant’s wife → coal merchant → cigar maker and labourer → domestic servant. None of those steps was in itself a major change and some of the individuals themselves might not have thought that they were downwardly mobile. But the cumulative effect was very marked. That younger sons in England (usually) didn’t inherit land made this far from unusual.
A comedic take on this is Rowan Atkinson’s character in Blackadder, a British sitcom whose four seasons are all set in different times of English history. The understanding is that each instalment of Edmund Blackadder is a descendant of the one in the previous season. In the first season he’s a son of the king in the Middle Ages, in the second a courtier to Elizabeth I, in the third a valet to George III and in the fourth a captain in the trenches of WWI.
No doubt. If you assume 33 years for a generation (generous for those times) then 1000 years is 30 generations.
2^30 super-great grandparents is roughly a billion. World population in 1000AD is estimated at 390 million; England’s population at 1.3 million. It’s not hard to figure some ancestors are doing more than double-duty.
Yes, descent through the ranks would be gradual. In a country where most people were ethnically the same, the only diving factor was class, and in those days, it was a major distinction. My point wwould be, once you find the connection to one noble, thanks to their small close interbred community, you likely have found the connection to almost all.
It’s not that unlikely. More than 25 percent of English people today are related by blood to Wlliam the Conqueror, for example.
I assume, too, that the Church of England allowing married clergy made it a more appealing parking spot for the lesser sons of nobles while not impeding the further spread of their genes.
Indeed (at least from Elizabeth I’s time): oldest son inherits, second son has a commission in the Army or Navy bought for them, third son goes into the law or the church, but he or his family needs to find a patron with the gift of a living, if they don’t already have one (or several) of their own - a plot mechanism for Jane Austen, Trollope, and if memory serves it’s in the family in the movie Kind Hearts and Coronets.
well, it would seem that no one other than the royals kept good enough records.
But for china… the oldest family records in China tell of the descendants of Confusious
The Japanese royal family records are older
Jewish and ethiopian “records” are likely fiction. its a not a good sign when they start with King David and the Queen of Sheeba… someone using stories as fact…
Slightly off topic, and I have no way to ascertain the veracity, but this may amuse:
Indeed! I wonder what the British royal family thinks of it?
Lots of wiggle room in those “great grandchild” descent relationships
The first line, from Muhammad down to the King of Seville, seems to be reasonably well-attested, and from the middle of the next line (Maria Fernandez de Henestrosa) down to Elizabeth is legit (assuming no false paternity events), but the next few generations from the King of Seville are the tricky part. In particular, Zaida/Isabel is a mysterious figure. She was definitely a Muslim royal from Seville who fled as a refugee to Alfonso VI of Castile when Seville fell to the Berber Almoravid dynasty; she converted to Catholicism, took the name Isabel or Isabella, and became Alfonso’s mistress.
However, her exact connection to the Seville royals is unclear; Muslim sources generally say she was the daughter-in-law rather than the daughter of Al-Mutamid of Seville. It’s also not clear whether Isabel, mistress of Alfonso VI, is the same person as Alfonso’s fourth wife, named Isabel, who was the mother of his younger daughters.
In other words, the descent of Elizabeth II from the Prophet is plausible, but not provable.
Suggesting a decent number of Brits are descended from the Prophet too, if this is true. I’m sure there’s a connection to much of Europe’s royal families there, and therefore to many of the population.
It’s a small world after all… ♫
If your family goes back many generation in England, you are almost certainly related to royalty.
And with bastards, etc it is easy to a paid tracker to come up with something.
Yeah, it seems like there was a King David… and that is all we know. It’s Sheba, btw. Her existence is disputed. There seems to have been a Queen of Seba- maybe.
And she perhaps visited Solomon- and we have no records or even hints he ever existed. Nor does the OT claim they were married or had children.
If I remember correctly one of his ancestors was on the wrong side of the English Civil War which greatly changed the family’s fortune.
Although my family background does not appear to be very English one branch is. The fact that we are related to Abraham Lincoln (we share a x times great grandfather) means the genealogy of that branch is easy. It’s been done for us and well documented. If you in any way are related to a president your genealogy is pretty easy to find. Through that line I’m a direct descendant of Edward I through Joan of Acre. Although the nobility was lost long before that branch had some rich early landowners that owned large parts of New York and New Jersey. None of the wealth made it to the 20th century.
But not in any way that affected Danny Dyer’s ancestry. The son of the Civil War colonel was a younger son, so wasn’t in line to inherit the family fortune, and he (probably) became a clergyman, a classic job for a younger son. Moreover, as a clergyman he was a pluralist, holding several livings at the same time, so probably wasn’t short of money. His son in turn was also a younger son and he became a surgeon, a reasonable enough option for someone in his position. There was nothing particularly unusual about the younger son of a younger son finding themselves with a rather different social status than their paternal grandfather.
England has has been remarkably stable politically that this can be a natural progression over centuries.
In other places invasions, civil wars have ensured all it takes is one ancestor getting on the wrong side of a conflict.
Here in Islamabad my law partner is directly descended from what was a century and a half ago titled and very big landowners. They ended up on the wrong side of the British and until his father’s generation become decidedly working class.
The UK is full of stories of families that fell from favour through being on the wrong side - Catholic vs non-Catholic, the War of the Roses, the Civil War etc. But I suppose it’s been stable recently
Yes. But there have been long periods of stability in between. Centuries even.
Contrast this with the Punjab and Frontier regions. Just time from 183”-1860 saw three major upheavals, the Sikh-Afghan wars, the British annexation and the 1857 mutiny with families, gaining, losing and gaining back favour.
The odd thing I found was that (I think) the Scottish nobles who participated in the 1715 and 1745 rebellions lost their lands and titles, but apparently got them back within a generation.