# Geneology. Anyone famous in your ancestry ? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 22, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589 "2011-08-22T00:39:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2011, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/61 "2011-08-25T10:24:22Z")
It’s peasants all the way down. I did hit Stewarts in Scotland on my partner’s tree, but haven’t connected them to \* the\* Stewarts. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2011, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/62 "2011-08-25T10:31:29Z")
By the way, shouldn’t the Charlamagne descendents have a reunion? There’s enough of us that for five dollars each we could rent Vegas for a week. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2011, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/63 "2011-08-25T12:27:19Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Just about _everybody_ is related to Charlemagne 😛 ( exaggeration, but not much of one ). At least if you have any substantial northern European heritage. Which I believe was **jasg** ’s point. > > Due to [pedigree collapse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse) it is a near certainty that everyone on earth is related to someone of prominence. Your ancestors would have had to work hard not to be. I agree, we are related through Marie Cote. very distant. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/64 "2011-08-25T16:53:01Z")
> [@KRC](#): > > By the way, shouldn’t the Charlamagne descendents have a reunion? There’s enough of us that for five dollars each we could rent Vegas for a week. I’m not sure Vegas would have a sufficient water supply. Charlemagne apparently has some descendants in surprisingly far away places. > **[Descent from antiquity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_to_the_Mughals)** > > In European genealogy, a descent from antiquity (DFA or DfA) is a proven unbroken line of descent between specific individuals from ancient history and people living today. Ancestry can readily be traced back to the Early Middle Ages, but beyond that, tracing to historical figures from antiquity is impractical due to insufficient documentation of the ancestry of the predominantly new royal and noble families of the period. Though the subject of ongoing effort, no well-researched, historically-do... ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/65 "2011-08-26T02:46:04Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Due to [pedigree collapse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse) it is a near certainty that everyone on earth is related to someone of prominence. Your ancestors would have had to work hard not to be. I’ve waited some time to ask because I didn’t want to appear stupid, but I don’t follow you. I checked the link on pedigree collapse and to quote, > [@](#): > > In genealogy, pedigree collapse describes how reproduction between two individuals who knowingly or unknowingly share an ancestor causes the number of distinct ancestors in the family tree of their offspring to be smaller than it could otherwise be It would seem to me that where ever pedigree collapse occurs, the probability of descent from someone in the subset of prominent historical figures is reduced. Are you sure you didn’t mean “in spite of pedigree collapse…” rather than “because of pedigree collapse” ? ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/66 "2011-08-26T03:42:06Z")
I am descended from these people: > **[Clan Mackintosh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Mackintosh)** > > Clan Mackintosh (Clann Mhic an Tòisich) is a Scottish clan from Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. The chiefs of the clan are the Mackintoshes of Mackintosh. Another branch of the clan, the Mackintoshes of Torcastle, are the chiefs of Clan Chattan, a historic confederation of clans. > The Scottish Gaelic word toisiche means leader and can also be translated as chief. The seanachies of the Clan Mackintosh claim that the first chief of the clan was Shaw, second son of Duncan MacDuff, Earl of Fif... and these: > **[Clan Donald](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Donald)** > > Clan Donald, also known as Clan MacDonald (Scottish Gaelic: Clann Dòmhnaill; Mac Dòmhnaill \[ˈkʰl̪ˠãũn̪ˠ ˈt̪õː.ɪʎ\]), is a Highland Scottish clan and one of the largest Scottish clans. The Lord Lyon King of Arms, the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grants of coats of arms, and serving as the judge of the Court of the Lord Lyon, recognises under Scottish law the High Chief of Clan Donald. Historically the chiefs of the Clan Donald held the... ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/67 "2011-08-26T04:12:24Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > It would seem to me that where ever pedigree collapse occurs, the probability of descent from someone in the subset of prominent historical figures is reduced. No, it is increased. Because, weird outliers aside, any line that successfully propagates itself soon ramifies throughout a much larger population. The universe of prominent people is sufficiently large that if a trace back far enough you’re eventually going to run into one, _if_ it has lasted into the modern day at all. I’ll quote **septimus** above: > [@septimus](#): > > Yes. It may seem paradoxical, but almost all Europeans alive at the time of Charlemagne were either ancestral to almost all present-day Europeans or to absolutely no living persons at all. Pedigree collapse results in the phenomenom that the farther back you go the more likely everybody around you today is descended from the same group of people, because at a certain point you start getting fewer and fewer unique ancestors. Eventually we all start converging back to the same starting line ( ultimately a genetic Adam & Eve ). Which means if you were a particular 8th century royal whose line actually successfully propagated itself into modern times, you should literally have millions of descendants. And those millions breeding with other millions result in even more millions ;). The longer a particular line lasts, on average the bigger it should get ( again, weird outliers aside ). ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/68 "2011-08-26T05:00:08Z")
John Adam Kasson was, in the later 19th century, a well known political figure in the US. He was Postmaster General, ambassador to Austria-Hungary, and so on. He was my third-cousin five times removed. Our only common ancestor was one Adam Kasson, who came to Conneticut in 1722. He had a lot of kids, I’m descended from one, JAK from another. My maternal grandmother was a Kasson. ---
**Author:** ![booklover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/69 "2011-08-27T20:42:06Z")
[Wallis (Warfield) Simpson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson) is a cousin on my maternal grandmother’s side. ---
**Author:** ![uuaschbaer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@uuaschbaer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uuaschbaer)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/70 "2011-08-27T21:42:08Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > If the OP is European, there is a fair chance that he is descended from the exact same king that his wife was. They almost certainly share a common ancestor somewhere down the line. They do; we all do. From [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor#MRCA_of_all_living_humans): _Tracing one person’s lineage back in time forms a binary tree of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on. However, the number of individuals in such an ancestor tree grows exponentially and will eventually become impossibly high. For example, an individual human alive today would, over 30 generations, going back to about the High Middle Ages, have 2^30 or about 1.07 billion ancestors, more than the total world population at the time._ Of course, you don’t need to think this hard about it to realize that it’s inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/71 "2011-08-27T22:42:19Z")
Anybody ever heard of Bob Suffridge? He played at UT, then the Philidelphia Eagles, 1938 thru 1940. And Roy Acuff was my father’s cousin. Hey, we’re from the hills…we’ve got our “royalty” too. lol ---
**Author:** ![Snake\_Plissken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@Snake\_Plissken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snake_Plissken)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/72 "2011-08-29T04:10:23Z")
> [@markm](#): > > Being played by the same actor does not make you actually related 😉 Ha! I didnt even think about that. ---
**Author:** ![Snake\_Plissken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@Snake\_Plissken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snake_Plissken)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589/73 "2011-08-29T04:20:22Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Pretty sure that Wyatt Earp didn’t have any children. I dont know if he did or not. My Uncle that lived in Monmouth Ill. is the one that told me about the family history when I was around 7 or 8 years old. He had the bed in which he was born and a bunch of his personal possessions, including a couple of his guns. He told me that I was a cousin, but cant remember the line. I probably should do a little digging. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geneology-anyone-famous-in-your-ancestry/593589.md?page=3)