# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/41 "2010-08-15T02:53:50Z")
He doesn’t have to “corner” a huge proportion of the population in order to be an ancestor ro 100 percent of the population. As has been pointed out, once you go back a few generations, your ancestry is no longer filled out by unique individuals. The 25 percent figure is the proportion of Central Asian men who are direct male-line descendants of Genghis Khan. As an aside, I’ve read that Genghis Khan fathered children on about 1,000 different women. ---
**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 15, 2010, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/42 "2010-08-15T08:17:04Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > > > Isn’t like 25% of all Central Asian peoples descended from Genghis Khan? > > And some huge percentage of English people are descended from Edward III. 5% of males within the old Mongol Empire have been shown to have nearly identical Y-chromosomes – it’s only a (very good) assumption that this is the chromosome of Temudzin “Greatest of Rulers”. With this huge agnatic descent, Temudzin must be ancestral in some way to 99% of Central Asians, any exceptions being recent immigrants. Edward III is not a similar story. While simple math might suggest he has many millions of living descendants, class barriers may make the actual number much smaller. _Certainly most American genealogists are unable to find their own **proven** line of descent from Edward III._ Reasons for the greater procreative success of the Mongol Khans are well known: Five hundred wives and concubines composed the harem of Genghis … Kublai Khan’s underling, the celebrated Italian traveler Marco Polo, wrote that each year the emperor took 30 additional virgins to be his concubines from a province renowned for the beauty of its women. > [@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 may be applicable to Europe’s “Dark Ages” but isn’t universal. Many Chinese allege “proven” descent from Confucius, who lived 2500 years ago. Aristocrats of ancient Persia, Greece and Rome kept records; the problem is extending those genealogies to the present. It might be doable if a single blood-line prevailed as rulers throughout such a long period; Ireland’s O’Neil family may come close but I don’t think historians extend it much before Niall Noigiallach (born 4th century). > [@Huerta88](#): > > It was a plot point in a novel that I read recently that the House of Saud claim to be (literally) the lineal heirs to Muhammad. The Saud claim is, AFAIK, just fiction. The King of Jordan, on the other hand, shows on his own website a detailed agnatic lineage back to Ali ibn Abu Talib (who married the daughter of the Prophet). I don’t think that line has been de-bunked (but doubt it’s been bunked either). For long lines, a question that arises is how thoroughly must each link be known to be valid? If some ancient’s mother was “almost certainly” a Frankish Princess can that be counted as a link, despite that details are unknown? For example, Alfred the Great’s grandmother Redburga was described contemporaneously as “regis Francorum sororia”, but no details are confirmed. Yet all reconstructions make her a g-g granddaugher of Charles Martel. Would you accept that all descendants of Alfred are therefore proven descendants of Charles Martel? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/43 "2010-08-15T13:44:39Z")
septimus writes: \> 5% of males within the old Mongol Empire have been shown to have nearly \> identical Y-chromosomes 8%, as is indicated in the link in my post (#33). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/44 "2010-08-15T14:52:25Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > I never understand these statistics. In that case, surely there were only 4 people alive at the time? Or did he procreate with 25% of the women available at the time? > > What happened to the other hundreds of thousands of people alive in Central Asia at the time who therefore only - between them all - accounted for 75% of the descendants? How did he manage to corner a whole quarter of the population? Surely 99.9999% of the women at the time \*didn’t \*procreate with Genghis Khan, and they have decendants too, no? Which multiplied at the same rate as his descendants? > > How does that make 25% of people thousands of years later descended from him? Surely 99.999% of people are descended from people who lived at the same time but who never even met him, let alone procreated with him? > > As is clear, I do not have a grasp on how this works! 1. A lot of Chinghiz Khan’s contemporaries will have “failed” lines with no living descendants. 2. Those with successful lines will, through intermarriage with succeeding generations, become related, eventually, become ancestors to all living people. 3. Think about your family tree. At done point the power of 2 associated with the number if generations back becomes larger than the number of people who actually lived at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@Captain\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/45 "2010-08-15T17:04:58Z")
What about Sid Caesar? ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/46 "2010-08-15T18:12:35Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Those with successful lines will, through intermarriage with succeeding generations, become related, eventually, become ancestors to all living people. > > 2. Think about your family tree. At done point the power of 2 associated with the number if generations back becomes larger than the number of people who actually lived at that time. Neither of these arguments is applicable to the all-male line, like we have with Genghis. When you’re talking about an all-male line, it’s 1 to a very large power, not 2 to that power. The fact that Genghis himself had children by so many women is a good start, but for it to really work out, you also need for his sons, and their sons, to also be well above-average in fruitfulness. It might be that Genghis just had really good genes and so his sons also tended to be very fit (where “fit” can be any trait that makes them more likely to score), or it might be that there was some social or monetary benefit to being a son of the Great Emperor that propelled them into advantageous positions. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/47 "2010-08-15T18:24:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > When you’re talking about an all-male line, it’s 1 to a very large power, not 2 to that power. Surely it’s 2[sup](a very large power-1)[/sup]? (That is, 2 to a very large power, but divided in half.) 1[sup]∞[/sup] is still one. ---
**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 15, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/48 "2010-08-15T18:46:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The fact that Genghis himself had children by so many women is a good start, but for it to really work out, you also need for his sons, and their sons, to also be well above-average in fruitfulness. The Khans practiced rape and had vast harems for many generations. I can’t Google it, but one visitor to a Khan (other than Genghis or Kublai?) reported the Khan proudly showing him over 1000 of his children. Still the “Genghis Khan Y-chromosome” seems statistically amazing! I don’t think researchers can rule out that other Mongol warlords contemporaneous to Genghis were his agnatic cousins and that this Y-chromosome had already benefited from a century or more of rape. (Deductions about prehistory from Y-dna is a fascinating area. The presence of Q-haplogroup in Scandinavia is an interesting enigma about which it might be fun to start a thread.) ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/49 "2010-08-15T18:50:49Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > When you’re talking about an all-male line, it’s 1 to a very large power, not 2 to that power. > > Surely it’s 2[sup](a very large power-1)[/sup]? (That is, 2 to a very large power, but divided in half.) 1[sup]∞[/sup] is still one. Never mind: I see what you meant now. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/50 "2010-08-15T18:56:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The fact that Genghis himself had children by so many women is a good start, but for it to really work out, you also need for his sons, and their sons, to also be well above-average in fruitfulness. Genghis was succeeded by his sons and grandsons, including Kublai Khan. I am not sure how long his direct male line continued in power, but since they would have had large harems they certainly would have had ample opportunity to spread their genes around. I’m not sure how successful other male descendants were, but I doubt being related to the Great Khan was a disadvantage. ---
**Author:** ![merrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@merrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrick)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/51 "2010-08-15T19:04:13Z")
[quote=“Chronos, post:46, topic:542725”] > [@](#): > > The fact that Genghis himself had children by so many women is a good start, but for it to really work out, you also need for his sons, and their sons, to also be well above-average in fruitfulness. It might be that Genghis just had really good genes and so his sons also tended to be very fit (where “fit” can be any trait that makes them more likely to score), or it might be that there was some social or monetary benefit to being a son of the Great Emperor that propelled them into advantageous positions. Well, four of his sons became Great Khans and carried on the family tradition (Wikipedia credits Jochi with 14 sons, 3 of whom became Khans of various hordes; Tolui with 10 and Ogadei with 7). After the Mongol fragmentation pretty much every state in Northern Asia was ruled by a descendent of Genghis, and since polygamy/harems was the norm for Asian rulers the number of male-line descendents must have been impressive. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/52 "2010-08-15T19:44:32Z")
> [@](#): > > The Khans practiced rape and had vast harems for many generations. I can’t Google it, but one visitor to a Khan (other than Genghis or Kublai?) reported the Khan proudly showing him over 1000 of his children. It wasn’t necessarily all rape. Genghis Khan was undoubtedly the most powerful man in the world in his time, and there’s never been a shortage of women attracted to power. I don’t know what he actually _did_, but he almost certainly _could_ have filled his vast harems entirely with willing women. ---
**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 15, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/53 "2010-08-15T19:50:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > The Khans practiced rape and had vast harems for many generations. I can’t Google it, but one visitor to a Khan (other than Genghis or Kublai?) reported the Khan proudly showing him over 1000 of his children. > > It wasn’t necessarily all rape. Genghis Khan was undoubtedly the most powerful man in the world in his time, and there’s never been a shortage of women attracted to power. I don’t know what he actually _did_, but he almost certainly _could_ have filled his vast harems entirely with willing women. But seriously, women in that culture generally didn’t choose their mates. They may have considered it a better alternative to anything else they had, but it wasn’t like they would have had much of a choice. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/54 "2010-08-15T20:17:30Z")
Julius Caesar, _shmulius caesar_. A friend of mine has his genealogy going back to Ramesses II’s great-grandfather Seti. It’s a formidable document even if dubious in its accuracy. I want to see it again. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/55 "2010-08-15T20:23:21Z")
For similar reasons to Genghis Kahn and Asia I’ve wondered before what the distinction was in the first century Near East of being a descendant of King David, though it was in the prophecies that the Messiah would come of his line and Christ’s ancestry is traced back to David by two gospels (using two conflicting and impossibly mutally existent genealogies). Assuming the historicity of King David’s existence and that the OT’s statements about his family were true or at least were accepted as true, he had numerous wives and at least two dozen children. (The scriptures give the names of twenty of his sons and one daughter and they mention other daughters [not by name]). His son Absalom had several children, and though only one son of Solomon is mentioned in the OT it’s likely there were many since he had many wives and concubines, and that one son Rehoboam is said to have fathered more than 80 children (which is not at all unrealistic for an ancient king; Ramses II had far more than that, well over 100 that we have the names for and possibly closer to 200). Jesus would have been born at minimum almost a thousand years after David. It’s not at all impossible that by this time everybody in Judea was a direct descendant of David; it’s almost harder to believe that they would not have been when you consider how many lines that is. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/56 "2010-08-15T20:29:47Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Julius Caesar, _shmulius caesar_. A friend of mine has his genealogy going back to Ramesses II’s great-grandfather Seti. > It’s a formidable document even if dubious in its accuracy. I want to see it again. Since Seti’s mummy is accounted for it would be interesting to do DNA testing, assuming it’s all male line. Of course thousands of years gives many different women the chance to jump the fence for a night and throw off the bloodline. Much has been written of the Lemba tribe, the black southern African tribe whose oral history claimed Jewish ancestry. Few took them seriously until DNA testing backed them up. ([PBS Nova account](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/familylemba.html).) One reason I find this fascinating is that there are well documented leaps from a rider on horseback in southern history: the Indian chief Red Eagle clearing a 60 foot bluff and surviving in 1814 and the Confederate General Joe Wheeler clearing a 15 foot bluff in 1863- and there were written claims from eyewitnesses on both sides of the battles. A little research shows that Red Eagle’s bluff was closer to 8 feet and Joe Wheeler’s in Tennessee was closer to non-existent (though he did charge his horse into a river swollen by flood)- yet this tribe’s centuries older and oral rather than written account proves accurate while the eyewitnesses of much more recent events were dead wrong. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/57 "2010-08-15T21:19:21Z")
> [@](#): > > But seriously, women in that culture generally didn’t choose their mates. They may have considered it a better alternative to anything else they had, but it wasn’t like they would have had much of a choice. Well, by that token, it was all rape. But even if women officially couldn’t choose their mates, I expect that most of them still ended up with a husband acceptable to them anyway. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/58 "2010-08-15T21:30:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > But seriously, women in that culture generally didn’t choose their mates. They may have considered it a better alternative to anything else they had, but it wasn’t like they would have had much of a choice. > > Well, by that token, it was all rape. But even if women officially couldn’t choose their mates, I expect that most of them still ended up with a husband acceptable to them anyway. Honestly, as long as he doesn’t beat you, and has lots of resources [servants, food, durable goods] one man is as good as another. If you had to be stuck in a harem, one with plenty of food and stuff and servants beats a bare ger in the steppes. Love is nice, but if love isn’t one of the parameters of marriage, comfort is better. ---
**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 15, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/59 "2010-08-15T21:30:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > But seriously, women in that culture generally didn’t choose their mates. They may have considered it a better alternative to anything else they had, but it wasn’t like they would have had much of a choice. > > Well, by that token, it was all rape. But even if women officially couldn’t choose their mates, I expect that most of them still ended up with a husband acceptable to them anyway. I didn’t mean to imply that it was “rape”. I don’t think the modern sense of the term is applicable to ancient cultures. And I’m not sure why you would assume that women ended up with husbands acceptable to them. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/60 "2010-08-15T22:34:35Z")
Because even if the man’s making the choice, it’s a lot more pleasant to be married to a woman who wants to be married to you than to one who doesn’t want to, so I would expect most men would choose to marry women who wanted (or at least were willing) to marry that man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=4)