Adoption was very common in roman families but they usually adopted someone with some blood ties.
Great Caesar’s Ghost!!
To address a question in another thread, some medieval families did claim descent from the Julio-Claudian family that dominated 1st century Rome (though not from the famous Dictator himself). For example, the Hapsburgs wished to embellish their pedigree so claimed descent from Italy’s important Colonna family, which claimed descent from the Counts of Tusculum, which claimed descent from Gens Julia – but each piece of this chain might be considered bogus fabrication.
(The Tusculum family, BTW, included the amazing Marozia about whom SDMB’s Mississippienne has written so brilliantly.)
It seems not unlikely that some members of the Julio-Claudian family retained wealth, and that there was indeed some unbroken parent-child inheritance chain connecting that family to Colonna. But no such descent had its records preserved through the “Dark” Ages. Farther East, Kingdoms like Bosphorus had a briefer “Dark” period (overrun by Huns) and traceable lineages may be possible, though even the lineage I gave upthread is considered, AFAIK, quite speculative.
Interesting information, its something to look into further. So there are indeed modern people who claim such a family tree link. The crucial thing is the title or bloodline as in inheritance laws. ( I would have thought) These things are always punctiliously observed in our modern era and they most certainly were in ancient Rome as well. One would find it hard to imagine a historical period so metaphorically ‘dark’ that , even if no written records have come down to us of the passing on of a family name from one generation to the next, such a transfer didn’t occur.
VeryCoolSpouse and I once mated on the steps, right there in our house, but it was rather uncomfortable (despite the carpet) and we never did it again.
Not as carefully as one would think. It was very common in the Middle Ages for a pretender to an estate to show up out of nowhere and make a claim. “I’m the firstborn son of recently deceased Olaf the Toothless by his secret first wife Helge.” These pretenders would be supported by rivals to the other heirs. They’d swear up and down that the pretender is the real thing, etc. He’d get the estate/title/whatever and start doling out rewards to those that supported him. Total baloney of course.
Lying in legal proceedings was so common it was practically a tradition. The ancient Athenians were legendary is this regard. Lots of reports of stolen inheritances. Business and legal transactions with them were extremely dicey. Bribery was also common among the ancient Romans. Best way to become Emperor, regardless of bloodline or other rights. Things got worse during the early Middle Ages.
Like
The Julio-Claudian did not survive the 1st century due to the frequent political murders of anybody who might threaten to become an alternative heir to whoever was in power at the moment. The tree also did not fork much because of the tendency to intermarry cousins. Claims for lines of descent that continued later appear to have been forged first by the Anician family of the late empire, who could trace to in-laws of the last Julio-Claudians.
In the genealogy linked to some pages back, purporting to trace the English royal house:
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/empire2britain.wps.htm
the weakest link is from #09 Curtilia, who married Domitius Lucanus, to #10, Domitia Lucilla (mother of Domitia Lucilla II, the mother of Marcus Aurelius). Unfortunately Domitia Lucilla was not the daughter of Domitius Lucanus but his sister. Her father was actually Gaius Catilius Severus, from a family of Punic origins raised to Roman nobility (Severus is a Latinization of Semitic sopher “scribe”), one branch of which eventually produced emperors Septimius Severus and his sons Caracalla and Geta (though Elagabalus and Alexander “Severus” were not members of the Severus line, but in-laws) and much later Libius Severus, a weak puppet in the very last days of the West. The confusion may arise because the root nepos/nepota was used rather indifferently for “nephew/niece” or “grandson/granddaughter”; the mother of Marcus Aurelius is described as a nepota of Lucanus because his intermarriage gave him high rank.
Curtilia’s grandfather Octavius Laenas was an untraceably distant cousin of Augustus (since he was of gens Octavia) but is counted as a Julio-Claudian descendant in the hopes that his mother Rubellia Bassa was the daughter of Rubellius Blandus by his marriage to Julia, a granddaughter of Tiberius who is often confused with Julilla, a granddaughter of Augustus (Julilla actually married Lepidus, a nephew of the weak third member of the Second Triumvirate who failed to keep the peace between Octavian and Antony; her daughter Lepida started the large Silanus family, all wiped out by Agrippina and Nero except the fierce Calvinia Triaria, who survived to an old age because she had been exiled on an island for all her childbearing years). However, Blandus married Julia late, and it is often questioned whether Rubellia Bassa was not rather a child of an earlier marriage of his (Blandus and Julia did have a son, murdered by Nero of course; if Bassa was their daughter it would seem unlikely that any son of hers would have been allowed to live). Descendants of Laenas make sure to mention this, but again we have what appears to be boasting about an in-law or stepchild connection: it is honorable to be from a family which was thought worthy of intermarrying with one of the top families. A descendant of Laenas, Sergia Paulia, became a late wife of an Anicius, and so the Anician family makes sure to preserve this information, although not descended from her (Anicius Olybrius married a daughter of the last Valentinian emperor, reigned himself for a ridiculous couple years toward the end, and these two did have a lot of prominent descendants in the Byzantine nobility).
Similar threads have come up on here before, and the consensus amongst historians and genealogists is still, generally, the same: there’s no rock solid line back to any of the European dynasties of antiquity to the present day. That means the paper trail is questionable. You can believe anything you want, and if some website tells you Julius Caesar is your 92nd great-grandfather, you can go on believing it if that makes you happy.
Putting aside the paper trail, very probably many of the famous people of antiquity ARE the ancestors of most or all of us. Mark Antony left so many descendants that even cutthroat Julio-Claudian politics couldn’t kill them all off, so the odds are good that a few of them got busy and made some babies. It’s one thing for a descent back to, say, Antony and Cleopatra to be mathematically probable and another thing to prove it.
As has been mentioned before, probably our best bet to get a paper trail back to antiquity is through the Georgian and Armenian dynasties. Here’s another possible descent, but with some major problems:
- Mithridates IV, king of Parthia, died 140.
- Vologases IV, king of Parthia, died 191.
- Vologases V, king of Parthia, died 208.
- Khosrov I, king of Armenia, died 217
- Tiridates II, king of Armenia 217-252
- Khosrov II, king of Armenia, died 252
- Tiridates III, king of Armenia 287-330, married Ashkhen, daughter of Ashketar, king of the Alans
- Khosrov III, king of Armenia 330-339
- Bambish, married At’anaganes
- Nerses, Katholikos of Armenia (died 373) married Sandukht (a Mamikonian princess)
- St. Sahak
- ‘Sahakanoysh’, married Hamazasp Mamikonian
- Hamyeak Mamikonian, married Dzoyk of Artsruni
- Vard Mamikonian
- Hmayeak Mamikonian
- Mousegh Mamikonian
- Vahan Mamikonian or Mousegh Mamikonian (same as 16)
- Dawit Mamikonian
- Hamazasp Mamikonian
- Artavazd Mamikonian
- Hmayeak Mamikonian
- Artavazd Mamikonian, strategos 778
- Marinos, droungarious
- Theodora, married the Byzantine emperor Theophilos
- Mikhael III, Byzantine emperor 842-867
- Leo VI, Byzantine emperor 886-912
- Anna, married Louis III, Holy Roman Emperor 901-905
- Charles-Constantine (died 962)
Looks good, right? Wrong. There’s major problems and uncertainties about this lineage. The earlier generations are all well-attested (Josephus, Dio Cassius, etc.). But it begins breaking down in later generations, and gets VERY questionable towards the end.
On down to about #13, Vard Mamikonian, everything is pretty well attested. The general Hmayeak’s (#12) children are known from the sixth century chronicler, Ghazar P’arpets’i and the seventh century chronicler, Sebeos. After that it gets a little shaky. After Vardan III fled to Rome, leadership of the Mamikonian family fell to #15, Mousegh son of Hmayeak. It’s assumed that Mousegh was Vardan III’s paternal cousin, ie that they were both grandchildren of #13 Vard and that Hmayeak was a son of Vard.
The next couple of generations are also disputed, although a Dawit Mamikonian is known from the writings of the historian Yeghishe. It’s assumed that Dawit was either a son or grandson of Mousegh. The historian Sebeos helpfully tells us that #19, Hmayeak, was a Mamikonian and a son of Dawit.
The parentage of #23, Marinos, is not certain, but we know his father’s name was Artavasd, and it seems likely that he was identical to the Artavasd Mamikonian who led an uprising in Armenia in 771 and was defeated by Smpat Bagratuni. (See Christian Settipani’s Nos Ancetres de L’Antiquite, Etudes des possibilites de liens genealogiques entre les familles de l’Antiquite, 1991)
Now here’s where it gets REALLY weird. The Byzantine emperor Mikhael III was involved in a bizarre four-way relationship with his mistress Eudokia, her husband/Mikhael’s probable lover Basil, and Mikhael’s sister Thekla. Eudokia gave birth to three sons of questionable paternity. The future Leo VI was one of those sons. Did Basil or Mikhael father Leo? I don’t know. Eudokia may not have known.
Anyway, #26 Leo VI had a daughter named Anna who was betrothed to Louis the Blind, the Holy Roman Emperor. Anna vanishes from history, and details are very sketchy. It’s not even certain she married Louis. All we know is that Louis had a son named Charles-Constantine, who in turn had descendants in the aristocracy of Western Europe. His unusual double name seems to hint at an imperial bloodline.
So that leaves me 500 years worth of ancestors to finagle into the lineage … though in my defense I don’t believe I am descended from the Claudians, we are more northern European - British Isles/Germanics.
I find it actually very amusing that for much of the city of Rome’s middle history it was a shabby decaying backwater rather than a powerhouse Capital City.
All Hail Cartooniverse !!!
Oh, I am likin’ the sound of that.
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
Caesar boinked everything that moved, both genders, married or no.
So, there’s certain to have been a bastard or three, if only on the slaves.
Given that he had no legitimate genetic offspring, maybe he was shooting blanks?
He had a legitimate daughter.
Through which of Julia’s children?
As I’ve said a couple times, there are are NO documented lines, royal or not, that are generally accepted by expert genealogists connecting to the Roman Imperial Family. You may think yours does, and if thinking that makes you happy, by all means, go ahead and think that. Mathematically, there are probably hundreds of millions, if not billions, of descendants of these people through various undocumented illegitimate lines. But there is no good paper trail going back to the Julio-Claudians.
Julius Caesar did have a legitimate daughter, Julia, who died in childbirth along with her only child (by her husband, Pompey). His son by Cleopatra, Caesarion, was killed on Augustus’ orders as a teenager. Caesar quite possibly fathered some of the children of his many mistresses, but we don’t know for sure.
Mississippienne’s post is correct, I’m sure, but with the caveat that if Caesar has any living descendants at all, he has at least a billion. (The phrase "at least two billion might be correct, but I’m making a conservative claim.)
I’ll defer to Mississippienne’s expertise on whether Caesar had only zero present-day descendants, but any European from that era who had any living descendants had at least a billion. (And wasn’t Caesar’s sister ancestral to Roman emperors and, probably, living people even if the Dictator were not?)
Assuming zero population growth, the average human has 2 children; after 2000 years (taking 25 years per generation) this is 2^80 descendants, or about a septillion. (Easy to remember; that’s also the approx. number of stars in the observable universe.)
So each of today’s living humans would have an average of 170 trillion lines of descent from each human living at the time of Julius Caesar. Or rather, since population growth is non-zero, several quadrillion lines.
Making the same calculation in the opposite direction, each living European has about a septillion ancestors (slots), mostly European. Dividing by the 100 million or so Europeans in Caesar’s day yields ten quadrillion.
So, does this mean that in Joe Plumber’s fully expanded pedigree there are 10 quadrillion paths to the famous Dicatator and 10 quadrillion paths to the Dictator’s barber? No, the barber, and most others in Julius’ time, probably have no living descendants at all. To make the average work, therefore, each present-day European has a quintillion paths on average from those who did have descendants; that set would probably include Caesar’s sister if not Caesar himself.
This isn’t “genealogy” – this is mathematics. Each breath you take has thousands of molecules once breathed by Julius Caesar, though no specific such molecule can be identified.
Googling “Identical Ancestors Point” might be informative, although such discussions encompass isolated populations in New Guinea and the Andaman Islands so MRCA dates, etc. are pushed back.
Although I don’t see the specific cited claim made explicitly in the cited paper, a typical claim is
I call BS on this. You are assuming that some European royalty can reliably trace his or her ancestry back to Julius Caesar. This is simply false. If you have information that proves otherwise, post it.
I agree, we are not upper end noble, and can trace back to the late 1100s but holy damn the particular lineage bounces around France, Netherlands, Germany and Alsace. In 6 generations it was like a case of French-Dutch ping-pong between 4 different families. Between the wedding, birth and death registries it makes me glad that lineage were Catholic - about the only thing that made it reasonably easy to follow for the earliest few hundred years.
[Being lesser nobility made it easier to stay alive - no real succession murders and wars to deal with. Yay for the farming noble class!]
It seems records exist at least from the site Geni.com
You
→ Wayne Irvin McDermott
your father → Jessie Adeline McDermott
his mother → Mary Jane Rush
her mother → Susannah Bond
her mother → Joseph Bond
her father→ Ann Bond
his mother → Sarah Bowater Mills
her mother → Sarah C. Beals-Underwood
her mother → Thomas Bowater
her father → John Bowater, Esq., of Coventry
his father→ Richard Bowater
his father → John Bowater
his father → Kathryn Bowater
his mother → Katherine Popham
her mother → Joan Popham
her mother →Sir Edward Stradling
her father → Janet Stradling
his mother → Catrin Mathew
her mother → *Efa verch Ieuan
her mother → Elsbeth verch Thomas
her mother →Jonet Ferch Ifor
her mother → *Catrin Ferch Hopkin
her mother → *?Gwenllian Verch Gruffydd
her mother → Rhys Foel Goch
her father → Rhys Goch Ap Richard
his father →Richard ap Einion
his father → Einion ap Collwyn
his father → Collwyn ap Tangno
his father → Tangno ap Cadfael
his father → Cadfael ap Lludd
his father →Lludd ap Llew
his father → Llew ap Llyminod
his father → Llyminod “Angel” ap Pasgen
his father → Pasgen ap Urien, King of Gwyr
his father →Urien ap Cynfarch, Brenin Rhegid
his father → Nyfain verch Brychan
his mother → Prawst verch Tudwal
her mother → Gratianna of Galloway
her mother →Magnus Maximus, Western Roman Emperor
her father → Eucherius
his father → Honorius
his father → Maximianus Constans
his father →Valerius Constantinus Dardanus
his father → Flavius Titus Eutropius
his father → Gordiana Balba
his mother → Maecia Faustina Antonia Gordiana
her mother →Fabia Orestilla
her mother → Silviana
her mother → Aurelia Fadilla
her mother → Annia Galeria Faustina Major, Roman Empress
her mother → Rupilia Faustina
her mother →Lucius Scribonius Libo Rupilius Frugi Bonus
her father → Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi, Consul 64
his father → Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi, Consul 27
his father→ Fausta Fausta Cornelia
his mother → Faustus Cornelius Cornelius
her father → Faustus Cornelius Cornelius
his father →Lucius Cornelius Sulla Cornelius, Dictator of the Roman Republic
his father… and on back into time…
Now what would this mean for a person in our modern times? Science might want to study the effects of long-term inbreeding over successive generations, wealth patterns, longevity as compared to general population? What happens to leadership families after the decline of leadership? Wealth and health patterns? Population movement over time? It’s all interesting.