# How reliably can ancestry be traced back? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752 "2015-01-02T07:59:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/1 "2015-01-02T07:59:50Z")
Whilst idly looking myself up on the internet (as you do!), I stumbled upon an entry on a website about myself, from this website I was able to trace my ancestry back to an Anglo-Saxon noble who died in 1068 [in fact searching his name I notice that it has been claimed that this particular person was the son of the Sveyn II King of Denmark, but this seems completely unsubstantiated]. Now the internet site I found uses 3 sources: _Burke’s Peerage_, _Burke’s Landed Gentry_ and _The Complete Peerage_. I’m already aware of the family links described in _Burke’s Peerage_ and these are pretty much unimpeachable. The cites from _The Complete Peerage_ seems to just support what is widely accepted by historians. The cites from _Burke’s Landed Gentry_ I cannot verify independently. How likely is it that this site is correct and I can trace my ancestry back almost 1000 years? ---
**Author:** ![Idilia\_Dubb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c2a13f/32.png) [@Idilia\_Dubb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idilia_Dubb)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/2 "2015-01-02T08:30:10Z")
You can’t rely on genealogical records to tell you who your biological ancestors were. Google “non-paternity event.” It’s a wise child that knows its own father, as the old saying goes. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/3 "2015-01-02T09:33:23Z")
The further back you go, the higher the chance that there’s been a cuckoo in the nest. After enough generations, it’s a certainty. Even if you could trace your name back to, say, 1015, there’s not much chance you’re actually descended from those people. On the male line, at least. > **[Richard III DNA study uncovers illegitimate child mystery](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-03/richard-iii-dna-study-uncovers-illegitmate-child-mystery/5935892)** > > A DNA study confirming a skeleton found in 2012 was that of Richard III also found evidence of "false paternity" raising doubts about the royal claims of centuries of British monarchs, researchers say. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/4 "2015-01-02T12:06:15Z")
None of them should be regarded as infallible. It also depends what exactly you want to check. For the descents of peerages, such works are usually accurate. That’s because peers tended to be prominent individuals and because the titles themselves are evidence of relationships. Also, the difficult cases tended to be the ones that these authors and other genealogists loved trying to untangle. But other information can be decidedly dodgy. In fairness, they were all originally compiled when genealogical research was much more difficult than it is today. However, the _Burke’s_ volumes - like their rivals - could often to be uncritical, especially about family origins, and they usually just kept repeating the old information in the subsequent editions. Worse, they rarely cited any sources. The _Complete Peerage_ is better, mainly because it was always intended to be a more scholarly. The influence of J.H. Round was especially beneficial. But inevitably it’s now showing its age, even after the 1998 volume of addenda and corrigenda. Other corrections can be found [here](http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cp/). And, of course, as others have said, there’s the problem of false paternities… ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/5 "2015-01-02T12:26:07Z")
I had my ancestry traced professionally by an old and reputable company of genealogists based in Canterbury, Kent. My eldest son stumped up the cost and traced not only his paternal line but maternal too (my ex-wife). We found that not only were my ex-wife and I related but both of us were descended from Edward I (Longshanks). However, as the genealogist gently reminded us, the vast majority of those with any English blood in their veins, both here in England and around the world, would also be descended from royalty and related to us, however distantly. It’s next to impossible it should be otherwise given the exponential proliferation of relatives as one goes back. As to the royal connection the guy explained that most commonly it was a man that made good, got himself a knighthood and married upwards to some daughter of landed gentry. Follow that line back and you’re guaranteed to strike royal gold. Both my ex-wife and myself are descended from Joan of Acre, daughter to Edward I. Of course when you tap into that you can trace your line back to Kings of Jerusalem, Frankish monarchs and Roman senators in the twilight of Empire. All great fun if pretty meaningless. You can be sure with reputable genealogists of accuracy, at the least back to the Conquest. The net and personal research, well, not so much obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/6 "2015-01-02T12:36:42Z")
In the United States one plus (albeit sad one) of the slave trade is that because of slave records (being bought and sold) many black Americans can trace their ancestry back to the slave ship they were brought over on. Which could go all the way back to the 1700’s. It is a kind of mixed shame that years ago many of the old slaveholding families burned their old record books or else the books were not preserved so those records are lost. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/7 "2015-01-02T15:38:28Z")
Of course, I traced my ancestry based on the existing parish records in England. However, my ancestors were “bloody peasants!” so the record peters out somewhere around 1700, with a few cryptic entries before that. Apparently thanks to Crowell and his ilk, there was no church hierarchy determined to register anyone and everyone or even caring about registration from about 1640 to 1665 and things are pretty spotty before and after. I’m not aware of any meaningful, reliable, and relatively complete records outside of those parish registers. And of course, things get confusing in the mid-1800’s when people started moving all over Britain and some birth records, as far as I can tell, did not bother listing parents. I can point to ancestors born around 1700, listing parents who are not registered. I can point to births in the same village, same surname, from 1612 or so - grandparent? Sibling of grandparent? But the record gets hazy. > [@](#): > > You can’t rely on genealogical records to tell you who your biological ancestors were. > Google “non-paternity event.” > > It’s a wise child that knows its own father, as the old saying goes. the other polite term I’ve heard is “pedigree error”. Depending on whose research you believe, the incidence is somewhere between 2% and 10%. There’s the apocryphal story of the teacher in England who asked his students to compare blood-types as a biology heredity only to find that X% had blood types incompatible with their listed parents. Of course, how many people in the 1960’s knew their blood type, and even so, what are the odds that a random incorrect “father” would produce a blood type discrepancy? Plus, I’ve never been able to find an original source for that story. (Plus, as others have pointed out in discussing this topic, it includes the possibility of adoptions, guardianships, and children from pre-marriage relationships.) ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/8 "2015-01-02T16:55:53Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > The further back you go, the higher the chance that there’s been a cuckoo in the nest. After enough generations, it’s a certainty. Even if you could trace your name back to, say, 1015, there’s not much chance you’re actually descended from those people. On the male line, at least. > > [Richard III DNA study raises doubts about royal claims of centuries of British monarchs, researchers say - ABC News](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-03/richard-iii-dna-study-uncovers-illegitmate-child-mystery/5935892) I mean, false paternity may be much less of a problem for kings than for normal people. Historically, cuckolding a king was considered treason, so it was probably less common. But yea, for an average person, the rate of false paterntity is something like 2% or so (some early studies found 10%, so it may be higher, but those ones were probably less reliable). If we assume 2%, then your pure male-line genealogy has a 10% chance of being wrong after 5 generations, a 19% of going wrong after 10 generations, a 25% chance after 15 generations, a 33% chance after 20, and a slightly over 50% of being wrong if you extend it to 35 generations. Assuming 30 years per generation, 35 generations is going to put you sometime in the mid-10th century AD. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/9 "2015-01-02T17:02:40Z")
If the false paternity rate is 10%, then genealogies will typically have a 50% chance of going wrong if you extend them past 1815 or so, and if it’s 6%, then the cutoff date is going to be around 1685. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/10 "2015-01-02T17:16:15Z")
As I have pointed out before “false paternity” does not necessarily mean cuckolding, it can mean simply informal adoption of a nephew/niece or stepchild. For instance Alan Shepard, the US astronaut raised one of his wife’e nieces as his own daughter, she even had his surname. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/11 "2015-01-02T17:29:05Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I mean, false paternity may be much less of a problem for kings than for normal people. Historically, cuckolding a king was considered treason, so it was probably less common. > > … there’s the hilarious scene in _The Prince Regent_ where King George IV’s randy German bride is arriving in London. She obviously expects to carry on like she did in Germany, and makes some flirtaciuos comment to her escort. Her face drops like a lead weight when he replies “Oh, no madam; no one would do that. You are the future Queen of England, a man could lose his head for simply looking at you wrongly.” ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/12 "2015-01-02T17:33:28Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I mean, false paternity may be much less of a problem for kings than for normal people. Historically, cuckolding a king was considered treason, so it was probably less common. . . . . I’d guess, though, that having a king’s child in the family, either acknowledged or just as a maybe, would be much less limiting. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/13 "2015-01-02T17:39:40Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > However, as the genealogist gently reminded us, the vast majority of those with any English blood in their veins, both here in England and around the world, would also be descended from royalty and related to us, however distantly. It’s next to impossible it should be otherwise given the exponential proliferation of relatives as one goes back. I recall reading that, unless there is absolutely no crossbreeding between populations at all, if you go back a couple of hundred generations, you can neatly divide all people then alive into two groups: [ol] [li]Individuals who are ancestors to **no** people currently living.[/li][li]Individuals who are ancestors to **all** people currently living.[/li][/ol] With only the smallest sliver of people belonging in the “ancestor to some, but not all” category. Naturally, thus rule doesn’t apply if there are hard barriers to breeding between groups. But a general tendency of royals to not intermix with non-royals does not constitute a hard enough barrier. The kind of barrier that is hard enough looks more like “an ocean’s in the way”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/14 "2015-01-02T17:59:21Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > In the United States one plus (albeit sad one) of the slave trade is that because of slave records (being bought and sold) many black Americans can trace their ancestry back to the slave ship they were brought over on. Which could go all the way back to the 1700’s. > > It is a kind of mixed shame that years ago many of the old slaveholding families burned their old record books or else the books were not preserved so those records are lost. Absolutely wrong. Most African American lineages go “dark” right around 1865. Census records rarely listed slaves by name, only by gender and age. I have never heard of anyone being able to trace their ancestry back to the 1700s the way you describe. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/15 "2015-01-02T18:03:09Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > I recall reading that, unless there is absolutely no crossbreeding between populations at all, if you go back a couple of hundred generations, you can neatly divide all people then alive into two groups: > > [ol] > [li]Individuals who are ancestors to **no** people currently living.[/li][li]Individuals who are ancestors to **all** people currently living.[/li][/ol] > > With only the smallest sliver of people belonging in the “ancestor to some, but not all” category. > > Naturally, thus rule doesn’t apply if there are hard barriers to breeding between groups. But a general tendency of royals to not intermix with non-royals does not constitute a hard enough barrier. The kind of barrier that is hard enough looks more like “an ocean’s in the way”. You are talking about the [identical ancestor point.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point) As noted, it is estimated to be 5,000 - 15,000 years ago. If a generation is 20 years, then “a couple hundred generations” is about right. Before the “age of discovery”, this point was probably further back in time. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/16 "2015-01-02T18:30:51Z")
My uncle’s a geneology fan, and managed to trace our ancestry all the way back to the Plantagenet kings of England. However, like others have said, the lineage may not be 100% accurate – for example, my grandfather and my great-grandmother both had facial features which were strikingly similar to that of Native Americans. So yeah, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/17 "2015-01-02T18:44:24Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > My uncle’s a geneology fan, and managed to trace our ancestry all the way back to the Plantagenet kings of England. However, like others have said, the lineage may not be 100% accurate – for example, my grandfather and my great-grandmother both had facial features which were strikingly similar to that of Native Americans. So yeah, YMMV. Why would Native American ancestry negate the possibility of being descended from kings of England? BTW, the legendary “high cheekbones” are often NOT indicators of Indian ancestry. Not all of us Americans has a “Cherokee Princess” as an ancestor. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/18 "2015-01-02T19:08:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Why would Native American ancestry negate the possibility of being descended from kings of England? > > BTW, the legendary “high cheekbones” are often NOT indicators of Indian ancestry. Not all of us Americans has a “Cherokee Princess” as an ancestor. 😉 A girl I know has high cheekbones, a round face, dark hair and kind of almond shaped eyes, so she gets “Are you half Asian” or “Are you Native American” so often it drives her crazy. I would have guessed Russian or something if I met her the first time, but she swears she’s purely English and Irish. ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/19 "2015-01-02T20:03:56Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I’d guess, though, that having a king’s child in the family, either acknowledged or just as a maybe, would be much less limiting. It is, in fact, good to be the King. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752/20 "2015-01-02T20:16:56Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > Whilst idly looking myself up on the internet (as you do!), I stumbled upon an entry on a website about myself, from this website I was able to trace my ancestry back to an Anglo-Saxon noble who died in 1068 [in fact searching his name I notice that it has been claimed that this particular person was the son of the Sveyn II King of Denmark, but this seems completely unsubstantiated]. > > Now the internet site I found uses 3 sources: _Burke’s Peerage_, _Burke’s Landed Gentry_ and _The Complete Peerage_. I’m already aware of the family links described in _Burke’s Peerage_ and these are pretty much unimpeachable. The cites from _The Complete Peerage_ seems to just support what is widely accepted by historians. The cites from _Burke’s Landed Gentry_ I cannot verify independently. > > How likely is it that this site is correct and I can trace my ancestry back almost 1000 years? Which are you?- Duke Marquess Earl Viscount Baron Baronet Knight Esquire Gentleman plus Lairds make the list for Scotland only, I think. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-reliably-can-ancestry-be-traced-back/708752.md?page=2)