# Is Julius Caesar's bloodline traceable to present day? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725 "2010-06-11T00:57:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/181 "2016-05-31T15:04:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Nobody at all is descended from Gaius Julius Caesar, who left no descendants past the first generation. Are you positively certain of this? What about that Tigurini girl he impregnated while celebrating his victory in the 58 BC Battle of Bibracte? Mightn’t her child have survived? ---
**Author:** ![caeserblood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/57b2e6/32.png) [@caeserblood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caeserblood)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/182 "2016-05-31T15:31:31Z")
> [@nathanspears](#): > > Hi, > > I recently discovered with my family tree that I am a direct descendant of Caesar Augustus who was adopted by Julius Caesar. Family tree’s in some rare cases can very easily be traced back that far. For any family that comes from Royal lines records are kept. For most families that are related to a famous celebrity there are records of genealogy kept as well. I myself am that lucky. A. My family branches off and I am related to pretty much every royal family of many different countries. B. I am related to a very famous celebrity. So records are kept because of Royalty covering back to Julius Caesar and kept modern day as I am related to a celebrity. So I am a documented direct ancestor of theirs. > > Sincerely, > Nathan Spears Me Too. From Beauchamp line on both sides. to Baldwins 🙂 and Caesar and many others are you a Jamestown pilgrim also? mine is RIGG-Beauchamp Martin-Beauchamp john martin the first gov of Jamestown is my ancestor. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/183 "2016-05-31T20:14:36Z")
Not this Romans-\>Charlemagne crap again. Look, just because you _see_ a list of names on some web site doesn’t mean it’s been _proven_. Real genealogists have searched and searched and haven’t yet proven anything yet along this line. Repeat: _Nothing_ has been proven. Start with the always cited [Descent From Antiquity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_antiquity) web page on Wikipedia. Note how for the Rome-Big Charlie section (and many others), the word “possible” is used. “Possible” is a far cry from accepted by genealogists. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/184 "2016-05-31T21:04:58Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Are you positively certain of this? What about that Tigurini girl he impregnated while celebrating his victory in the 58 BC Battle of Bibracte? Mightn’t her child have survived? Heck, Caesar probably sowed more wild oats per year than the entire National Wild Oat Sowing Society combined. If you believe the sources, he was boinking everyone and their mother. \*Especially \*their mother. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/185 "2016-05-31T23:08:47Z")
It may be, but as far as we can document, Julius Caesar had one legitimate daughter who lived to adulthood, who didn’t survive him and didn’t have any surviving children (she and her baby both died in childbirth), and probably one illegitimate son, Ptolmey XV of Egypt, who was killed at 17 and, as far as we know, didn’t have any children. Any other kids he may or may not have have not been documented. Also, John Martin was never Governor of Jamestown. He was a member of the council that governed Jamestown, but the first President of the Council was Edward Wingfield (who was sent back to London in disgrace), the second was John Ratcliffe, (who was lured into an ambush by the Powhattans pretending to want to trade with him and was tortured to death, and who got really slandered in that Pocahantas movie), the third was Matthew Scrivener, who died with half of the Council when their boat capsized in a storm), the forth was John Smith, the fifth was the pretty incompetent George Percy, and the sixth was Sir Thomas Gates, who did a lot to save the colony. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/186 "2016-06-01T19:03:17Z")
It seems to me that the first thing that **caeserblood** needs to do is to try to understand the rather elementary distinction between the [Roman Emperors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_emperor) and the [Holy Roman Emperors.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Emperor) As others have already said, a documented descent from the latter is boringly unremarkable. Which, of course, is why this thread was never about that. It is only a documented descent from the former that would be genuinely astonishing. But it is not even clear that **caeserblood** can claim to be descended from the Holy Roman Emperors. Her much-vaunted descent seems to fall at the first hurdle. According to her family trees on [Ancestry.com](http://Ancestry.com), which she links to from her website, she thinks that John Martin (d. 1632) of Jamestown was the son of Robert Martin (1539-86) of “Athelhamson”, Dorset and Elizabeth Kelway. But as [the Wikipedia entry on John Martin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(Jamestown)) points out, there is good evidence in the form of the Martin pedigree in the 1620 heraldic visitation of Devon that he was probably the son of someone completely different, namely John Martin of Bridgetown Pomeroy, Devon. That’s rather more than a minor little difficulty. All of which neatly illustrates the usual problem with such claims. A statement by someone on the internet that X was the son of Y proves absolutely nothing. Yet just one such mistake invalidates an entire line of descent. So what such a claim needs to be taken seriously is actual documentary evidence, which is just what tends to be lacking from late antiquity. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/187 "2016-06-01T19:58:07Z")
Trying to finagle an invitation to William and Kate’s wedding, I looked up my own immigrant ancestors in Internet databases, finding many alleged descents from British nobility. Investigating further I found that about 99% of the alleged descents had been discredited. :eek: There were various kinds of errors. For example: About 120 years ago there was a fad among Americans to pay genealogists for noble pedigrees and the genealogists obliged! ($50 for an Earl, $100 for a Duke?) At least those fake pedigrees have some value as antiques (the fraud is a century old :smack:) compared with 21st-century software that automatically links one Martin to the first random Martin it finds with roughly the right place and date. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/188 "2016-06-01T20:35:18Z")
[Queen Elizabeth II’s alleged descent from Mohammed](https://www.quora.com/How-is-Queen-Elizabeth-a-descendant-from-the-Prophet-Muhammed) In my own genealogical research I came across a book that claimed that I’m descended from Harold II of England. Of course, as \*\*septimus \*\*said, the book was written by a guy notorious for creating fake family trees. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/189 "2016-06-01T21:02:49Z")
I feel the need to iterate that I have a published genealogy showing I’m descended from Yngve Frey, king of Sweden some years BC, otherwise known as the God Frey. Library of congress reference CS71.G65842 Now using more scholarly sources that genealogy falls apart in the 1500s, but where’s the fun in that. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/190 "2016-06-02T00:19:32Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > In my own genealogical research I came across a book that claimed that I’m descended from Harold II of England. Of course, as \*\*septimus \*\*said, the book was written by a guy notorious for creating fake family trees. Every king of England/Britain since Edward III is descended from Harold II\*, though, and since it is estimated that something on the order of 80% of modern people of English descent trace from Edward III, there’s a pretty good chance you are Harold’s g-g-g-g-g-etc. grandchild, even if not in the lineage claimed. - Harold II Godwinson –\> Gytha of Wessex –\> Mstislav I of Kiev –\> Euphrosyne of Kiev –\> Bela III of Hungary –\> Andrew II of Hungary –\> Violant of Hungary –\> Isabella of Aragon –\> Philip IV of France –\> Isabella “the She-Wolf of France” –\> Edward III ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/191 "2016-06-02T00:40:08Z")
(never mind: old post I answered in 2015. Stupid slow public wireless freezing the page in the wrong place!) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/192 "2016-06-02T00:58:55Z")
That’s nothing, anyway. I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/193 "2016-06-02T03:54:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That’s nothing, anyway. I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. That’s no way to talk about your parents. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/194 "2016-06-02T06:30:02Z")
The present King of Jordan claims to be an agnatic descendant of the Prophet’s son-in-law (Praise Be Unto Him). (Prince Faisal, played by Alec Guiness in one of the greatest films, was the brother of Abdullah II’s gt-grandfather, Abdullah I.) Is this long lineage accepted by experts as valid? I’m not sure, but I think so. That would give King Abdullah II a deeper “confirmed” pedigree than those of European nobles. And if Mohammed has any descendants at all, he should have hundreds of millions of descendants! Surely Islamic DNA trickled into the Christians, no? But is a requisite trickle documented? > [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > [Queen Elizabeth II’s alleged descent from Mohammed](https://www.quora.com/How-is-Queen-Elizabeth-a-descendant-from-the-Prophet-Muhammed) The key links in the above chain, where an alleged Muslim descendant of the Prophet becomes an alleged ancestor of Christian European Kings, are > [@](#): > > Sancha Alfonsez, Infanta of Castile - daughter of > Zaida (aka Isabella) - daughter of > Al-Mu’tamid ibn Abbad, King of Seville - son of Zaida was a favorite mistress of [a famous Spanish King](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_VI_of_Le%C3%B3n_and_Castile) — that much isn’t in dispute. She was certainly(?) the mother of Alfonso VI’s only son and heir, but Sancho was killed at the Battle of Uclés while still in his teens and childless. Was Zaida/Isabella also the mother of Sancha? An ambiguity in evidence arises because Alfonso VI had another wife named Isabella — the same name Zaida took when she was baptized a Christian. Worse, [as Wikipedia points out, Zaida appears not to be the daughter of the Abbadid Emir Al-Mu’tamid anyway!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaida_of_Seville) So: Is Queen Elizabeth, along with many or most Europeans, descended from the Prophet? Quite possibly, just as a matter of sheer probability. But any specific lineage is in grave doubt. DNA tests may revolutionize some of these genealogical conjectures. Aren’t there others who claim to have the Fatimid Y-chromosome? Has their DNA been compared with that of Jordan’s King? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/195 "2016-06-02T06:38:48Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Actually, at this distance in time it’s a virtual certainty that anyone with any European ancestry _is_ descended from Caesar’s family (though not Julius, as his children left no descendants). This is due to pedigree collapse - as you go back in time, more and more of your ancestors are shared with others (see [Cecil’s column here).](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/412/2-4-8-16-how-can-you-always-have-more-ancestors-as-you-go-back-in-time) By the time you go back 2000 years, or around 100 generations, you are descended from essentially everyone who was alive in Europe at the time who has living descendants. Not this again. Once you get that far back, the branches of a pedigree merge back together within a tribal community. And Europeans had _caste systems._ There’s no guarantee that anyone is descended from the Julius family outside of people that could credibly be descended from them. And there might be none. Families go extinct as well. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/196 "2016-06-02T09:52:52Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Not this again. Once you get that far back, the branches of a pedigree merge back together within a tribal community. And Europeans had _caste systems._ There’s no guarantee that anyone is descended from the Julius family outside of people that could credibly be descended from them. And there might be none. Families go extinct as well. I don’t think so. While the famous Dictator may have no living descendants, gens Julia was one of the large and prestigious families in ancient Rome. Claudius and Nero may have been the last Emperors with clearly documented Julia blood, but many if not most Roman citizens in their day would have had an ancestor, however distant, in gens Julia. Mark Antony alone, whose mother was a Julia, is shown as having many descendants besides the two Emperors, no? Don’t confuse the extinction of a _dynasty_ (agnatic family) with complete extinction of a family. For clarity let’s make the ridiculous assumptions that everyone has exactly one son and one daughter. The number of agnatic male descendants by generation would be (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1). The number of descendants, agnatic or not, by generation would be (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128). The Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties went extinct (as far as anyone knows) but almost all of us descend from Charlemagne and Clovis. Your correct point about people mating _within their caste_ is an important one often overlooked. For that reason, those who think most Englishmen are descended from a certain 14th-century King may be mistaken, but inter-caste liaisons do occur, even if rare, so they’re on firmer ground to make the claim about an 11th-century King instead. If Mark Antony has any living descendants at all, he surely has at least a billion! Perhaps an expert on Roman genealogy can tell us about how many gt-gt-gt-grandchildren Mark Antony had. If it exceeds some threshold, his line probably did not go extinct. But even if it did, surely the blood of gens Julia did not die out completely. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/197 "2016-06-02T14:39:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Your correct point about people mating _within their caste_ is an important one often overlooked. I don’t think it is all that important. The greater the class differences, the more likely upper-class men are to take sexual advantage. Even if it’s only once every few years, it doesn’t take very many liaisons to mix the gene pool. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/198 "2016-06-02T16:09:11Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Not this again. Once you get that far back, the branches of a pedigree merge back together within a tribal community. And Europeans had _caste systems._ There’s no guarantee that anyone is descended from the Julius family outside of people that could credibly be descended from them. And there might be none. Families go extinct as well. Who could NOT be “credibly” descended from the gens Julia, however? MARRIAGE occurred mostly within the caste system, but paternity doesn’t require marriage. The maternal grandfather of William the Conquerer, for example, was at best no higher than a burgher of the city of Falaise, and may have been not much more than a peasant–Fulbert of Falaise is usually described as a tanner, but may have been an undertaker/embalmer, a furrier, or perhaps some other kind of tradesman. He was definitely not nobility, and if we had his genealogy, it’s fairly likely that peasants would appear no more than a few generations back. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/199 "2016-06-02T16:55:18Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Many Chinese allege “proven” descent from Confucius, who lived 2500 years ago. I saw that the Guinness Book of Records recognizes the Confucius family tree as the longest in the world, with 80 generations recorded. I wonder how much research and fact-checking they did to establish this as a legitimate record? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/200 "2016-06-02T17:46:41Z")
The latest I read about the Confucius lineage is that the lineage can be trace forty generations _before_ Confucius. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=11)