# 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:** 18\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/201 "2016-06-02T17:54:21Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > 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. Other Caesars went out of their way to kill off any relatives. _No one_ is descended from Julius. Form other Roman Emperors? Sure. ---
**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, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/202 "2016-06-02T18:40:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Other Caesars went out of their way to kill off any relatives. > > _No one_ is descended from Julius. > > Form other Roman Emperors? Sure. Saying no one _is documented_ to descend from Julius Caesar is accurate; saying no one is descended is perhaps overstating the provable case. Given his alleged history, _HE_ may not have known for sure if he had any rugrats among the slave women, mistresses, wives of political rivals, etc., whom he is reported to have bedded. If a camp follower in Gaul bore his child, that fact remained unknown to the wider world, but that doesn’t make it impossible. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/203 "2016-06-03T00:23:47Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 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! Given the proclivity for the Romans to screw their slaves I can pretty much guarantee non-caste children of the Julians issued. Whether or not they got claimed or not is another question. Short finding extractable documented DNA we have no way of knowing. But the converse is also true - short DNA analysis, casual bastardy can also mean that claimed “official” offspring of some royal’s wife may not have been his actual issue. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/204 "2016-06-03T19:16:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That’s nothing, anyway. I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. You should be our king. I don’t even know the name of my great grandparents, and have zero interest in knowing. Why should I care if I am descended from Cleopatra, the queen of Sheba, or Lucy? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/205 "2016-06-03T20:01:35Z")
> [@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. > [@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… I believe this is incorrect, **foolsguinea**. As has been stated and explained numerous times in this six-year old thread (such as [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12564653&postcount=23)), if you go far enough back in time, it is a mathematical certainty that any person living at that moment in time is either an ancestor of everyone alive today, or has no living descendants–with no exceptions. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > …And there might be none. Families go extinct as well. This statement, however, is correct. Note that **Colibri** says: “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** [emphasis added].” ---
**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:** [June 3, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/206 "2016-06-03T20:34:41Z")
In Europe, there wasn’t a _discrete_ caste system. It was _continuous_. The third child of a duke isn’t at the same level as a duke. They’d usually marry someone lower down. That person’s later children might marry even further down, etc. After 5-10 generations, you could be getting into the local “well off” folk at best. It also goes the other way: Look at the 6 wives of Henry VIII. Only the first was of somewhat comparable status (child of a king). 3 of them were daughters of somewhat minor folk. (And one of those produced Elizabeth I.) Other circumstances disrupted the system. E.g., Norway essentially lost almost all of its nobility during the years of Danish rule. The descendants of once powerful nobles later became landed gentry, and many times not even that. This type of thing happened a _lot_. Look at what the current [heir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayezid_Osman) to the Ottoman Empire is doing. To assert that people only married within some sort of fictional caste system is just wrong. ---
**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 3, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/207 "2016-06-03T21:03:41Z")
Henry VII’s grandfather himself was a minor nobleman. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/208 "2016-06-03T22:13:44Z")
There’s also the point that (until the advent of modern medical systems) people at least a few rungs up the social ladder were more likely to have surviving offspring than those at the very bottom, where the effects of malnutrition, overcrowding, overwork, etc., are most pronounced. Plus, downward social mobility was likely more common than upward, certainly in countries that practiced the English system of primogeniture. Everything goes to the eldest son, but the younger son(s) and the daughters who didn’t snag an eldest son for their husband would be a notch or two lower down the socioeconomic ladder than their parents, and their own younger children would slip even further. The typical European social system was a pyramid: a small royal or princely family, a somewhat larger high nobility, even larger lower nobility, still larger gentry/prosperous burgher class, and a very large pool of peasants and small-holders. The younger scions of royalty married into or became the high nobility, the younger scions of which married into or became lower nobility, etc., etc., etc., with the very poorest of the poor at the bottom not having surviving younger scions anyway (and most illegitimate offspring falling several to many rungs below their higher-ranked parent). In effect, that’s a pump pushing royal descent into lower echelons, until after enough generations pretty much everybody is descended from the guy who was once at the top. ---
**Author:** ![fightingcoaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@fightingcoaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fightingcoaster)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/209 "2016-08-07T10:23:26Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > If you figure about 30 years between generations, and two kids per generation, then there are about 2^(2100/30) = ~a sextillion descendents of Julius Caesar (or if not Caesar himself, then Caesar’s cousin) alive today. Obviously, his family tree had some straight sections to it because that’s more than the population of the planet, but still, the point remains, if you have _any_ European blood, your chances are pretty good at being one of those descendents. I’ve known my family to be descendants of Julius from my fathers’s mother but I don’t know where it goes from then, at less I know I am a descendant from Julius, also, I’m from Europe uk ---
**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:** [August 7, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/210 "2016-08-07T22:35:36Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Look at the 6 wives of Henry VIII. Only the first was of somewhat comparable status (child of a king). While it is true that English Kings tend to marry lesser personages — especially compared with Germany where a noble must marry a comparable noble to retain inheritance rights — I’ll have to nitpick. Catherine was more than “somewhat” comparable. In addition to her king-father, her Mother was the great Isabella of Castille, “the most influential woman in all of history.” Both Catherine’s sisters were Queens; her nephews included two Kings of Portugal and two Holy Roman Emperors. > [@slash2k](#): > > There’s also the point that (until the advent of modern medical systems) people at least a few rungs up the social ladder were more likely to have surviving offspring than those at the very bottom, where the effects of malnutrition, overcrowding, overwork, etc., are most pronounced. This is a key point. Even if the procreative advantage were only slight (in fact it’s huge), an effect like “compound interest” makes it easy to understand why everyone is descended from Kings. > [@fightingcoaster](#): > > I’ve known my family to be descendants of Julius from my fathers’s mother but I don’t know where it goes from then, at less I know I am a descendant from Julius, also, I’m from Europe uk I hope you can get your father’s mother to divulge the details. They will revolutionize Julius’ biography, not to mention the whole field of genealogy. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/211 "2016-08-08T00:27:55Z")
> [@fightingcoaster](#): > > I’ve known my family to be descendants of Julius from my fathers’s mother but I don’t know where it goes from then, at less I know I am a descendant from Julius, also, I’m from Europe uk Read the thread. Your “knowledge” is family lore, guaranteed to be inaccurate or flatly wrong and if we accepted it we’d be failing the boards mission of fighting ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Diocletian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Diocletian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diocletian)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/212 "2016-08-08T04:05:37Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > There isn’t anyone who can realistically trace their ancestry back 2000 years. Reliable records - even in the most aristocratic families - don’t exist before the renaissance. > > Even if reliable records did exist, the amount of formal and informal adoption, passing off one man’s children as another’s, etc, means that after many generations, 100% of people are descended from someone different to the official version of their bloodline. > > So, really, any of us with any possible European ancestry _might_ be descended from Caesar, but nobody will ever know for sure because proving it is impossible. Even if we had a sample of Julius’ DNA the amount of genetic drift that happens over 2000 years means that there is no possible way to definitively connect anyone from 2010 AD to any individual person from that era. The best you could say is “we can’t rule out the possibility that you _might_ be descended from the Julian clan.” While this is true for Europe (and pretty much the rest of the world), there are a few lineages in China, Korea, and other East Asian nations that go back very far, and there is a decent amount of evidence suggesting that many people can trace themselves back to Confucius: [Study finds single bloodline among self-claimed Confucius descendants](http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1354787/study-finds-single-bloodline-among-self-claimed-confucius) ---
**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:** [August 8, 2016, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/213 "2016-08-08T05:04:38Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > There isn’t anyone who can realistically trace their ancestry back 2000 years. Reliable records - even in the most aristocratic families - don’t exist before the renaissance. This is simply false, regardless of how you define “renaissance.” For example, using the genealogy of Stewarts it is certain that Y-chromosome SNP R1b-S781 occurred _specifically_ in John Stewart of Bonkill (who was killed in 1298 at the Battle of Falkirk)! There are many many lines that are traced reliably all the way back to Saint Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, born circa 582 A.D. And there are much older genealogies than that that are considered reliable, for example genealogies relating the nobles of ancient Rome to each other. The problem isn’t that reliable ancient genealogies don’t exist; the problem is that the links from Antiquity to the Middle Ages are unknown. This is due in large part to the replacement of Europe’s Roman aristocracy with their Germanic conquerors. Yes, there is always a risk of undocumented cuckoldings, but AFAIK this is about as likely to affect recent pedigrees as ancient pedigrees. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2016, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/214 "2016-08-08T06:42:20Z")
Not to mention that is a Euro-Centric view of things. Chinese family books have been known to go back hundreds and hundreds of years. [Yo Yo Ma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-Yo_Ma#Name_and_genealogy) can trance his ancestry back to 1217. ---
**Author:** ![Mamakaraba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Mamakaraba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mamakaraba)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/215 "2017-11-18T02:59:53Z")
I’ve traced my blood line back to ceasar!!! ---
**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:** [November 18, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/216 "2017-11-18T03:33:28Z")
Confucius’ bloodline (and he pre-dates Caesar by centuries) apparently _really is_ traceable to the present day. A guy I know who’s knowledgeable about Chinese history says that the women have historically been kept under pretty strict control so the chance of illegitimacy is quite low. That blew my mind when I learned about it, and probably says something about the level of social organization in China, historically, compared to anywhere else in the world. ---
**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:** [November 18, 2017, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/217 "2017-11-18T03:37:50Z")
> [@Mamakaraba](#): > > I’ve traced my blood line back to ceasar!!! To Julius Caesar? Or to another emperor? Because there’s no record of Julius Caesar having any grandchildren. All his known children died without heirs. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2017, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/218 "2017-11-18T04:45:26Z")
> [@Mamakaraba](#): > > I’ve traced my blood line back to ceasar!!! **Moderator Note** **Mamakaraba** , we prefer that old threads in General Questions only be bumped to provide new factual information. Since this does not, I’m closing it. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=10)