Girl Traces US Presidents' Family Tree, All Related But One (and it ain't who you think)

[TalkingDog]

Now do you get it, serfs? Between the ruling family and corporate persons, there is no room for the great unwashed to have a say.


http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=146059&catid=175

A young girl in California has put together a Presidential Family Tree. Twelve-year-old BridgeAnne d'Avignon found that all the presidents but one are related to King John of England through a common ancestor.

"They are all cousins and all grandsons of John Lackland," BridgeAnne told KCOY News. The girl searched more than a half million names for months. She started with George Washington, then traced both the male and female family lines to make the connection

[Burma Jones]

1. How did that damned Dutchman get through?

[Glorfindel]

5. Well, the Roosevelts were Dutch, too...

I guess they must have had a Norman/English connection that Van Buren lacked.

[Hannah Bell]

73. the roosevelts who originally came to the us were dutch, but they married plenty of non-dutch

thereafter.

fdr's mother was a delano (flemish/french), for example.

[RadiationTherapy]

2. I didn't even bat an eye.

I love how a 12 yr old did what historians were "unable to".

[LeftishBrit]

3. To put this in perspective, lots of people are related to royalty in some way

or at least have grounds for claiming to be.

This includes lots of 'serfs'.

It's even been said that almost all people of British origin are related to royalty somehow. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the following calculations, but they may be of interest:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OmIqf05W8_4J:famhist2.blogspot.com/2008/03/everybodys-related-to-royalty.html+am+i+related+to+royalty&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

There is a saying that everyone of English descent is related to Edward 1st, and everyone of Scottish descent to Malcolm 1st. Probably slightly exaggerated, but not by a lot.

[sarge43]

30. According to Weir's Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy

John had 23 grandchildren, 12 of them had children. Then there's granddaddy, the royal horndog, Henry I. Weir's credits him with 25 illegitimate children, half (perhaps more) of them had children.

Then there's his one surviving legitimate child, Matilda who became the mother of Henry II, grandmother to that rowdy fruitful mob.

Big slashes in a small gene pool.

[sarge43]

34. Forgot to mention the Black Death

which reduced the number of our English ancestors by a fourth to a third.

[Spider Jerusalem]

86. Considering that circa AD 1100 there were about 3 million people in Britain...

the odds are good that everyone of British ancestry is a descendant of William I and probably of Edward I. The number of one's ancestors doubles with every generation. William I is let's say 35 generations back, give or take; that gives one 34 billion direct ancestors at that point (2^35); the odds of not being descended from William I if one is of predominantly British ancestry are going to be fairly slim.

[sarge43]

114. Bottom line

Each of us alive today would have had more 1,100,000,000 ancestors living in 1066, if there had been no intermarriage among them. At that date the total population of the world can scarcely have exceeded 200 millions. Statistically, most of the inhabitants of western Europe are probably descended from William the Conqueror; they are equally likely to be descended from the man who groomed his charger, given that the latter was reasonably philoprogenitive.

Michael MacLagan, Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe.

[jberryhill]

4. Many are closely linked with Kevin Bacon

Do you know that mitochondrial DNA indicates that the most recent common ancestor of all humans lived 200,000 years ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve


Well, all righty then. Since King John signed the Magna Carta, I guess Habeus Corpus is here to stay!

[TalkingDog]

8. That was me. And damn, am I tired. n/t

[MilesColtrane]

98. So very tired of being admired.

Just like Lili von Shtupp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQU0_PHUB2E

[FBaggins]

6. Lol! So you think this is evidence of a ruling class?

Unless your entire family emigrated here in the last couple generations, chances are good that you are also related to John "Lackland" Plantagenet.

Some of these guys are 9th or 10th cousins several times removed.

[TalkingDog]

13. About half of my ancestors came across the Bering Straits

about 16,500 years ago and migrated across the N. American continent, where they settled into a fairly peaceful routine. Til the other half of my ancestors came across the ocean and booted them to the curb.

So my chances are less than many others.

As to your Subject Line: When was bitter hyperbole evidence of anything, but bitterness and hyperbole?

[MellowDem]

47. "Fairly peaceful routine"

:rofl:

[TalkingDog]

59. I said Hyperbole.....geeze....

:P

[MellowDem]

62. Ah... sorry for the confusion

:)

[pipi_k]

52. Sounds like my story, sort of, except...

way less than half my ancestors came across the Bering Straits...

Maybe 5%.


Then after those ancestors had been in Canada a while, 90% of my ancestors sailed over from France and made friends with one or two tribes, intermarrying with them, and with each other.


Then the other 5% showed up here in the US from England and one of them was kidnapped by Indians and brought to Canada where she took a French name and converted to Catholicism after being given/sold to a Frenchman.


Then a bunch of 'em came down from Canada through New York and Vermont and settled into interesting lives as farmers and mill workers in Massachusetts.


Not one drop of royal blood anywhere.

I did find out that a couple of the women were "Daughters of the King" in France, but it's not what it sounds like...

eh. Ordinary people.... :shrug:

[snooper2]

121. most of my ancestors came from the ocean...

where the preceded to eat their ancestors :rofl:

[Radical Activist]

28. I'm distantly related to him.

Along with anyone who has ancestors that followed the most common patterns of immigration from Europe to the US. All it means is that our Presidents are usually WASPS, which is no secret.

[Hannah Bell]

74. no, actually, our presidents were usually upper-class wasps, until fairly recently.

& john lackland isn't the closest link between most of them.

[Radical Activist]

76. All the same, most WASPS of any class

can find a common ancestry. I have a distant ancestor who was the illegitimate child of royalty. Since most royals are related, that makes me a distant relative of this same King. My family have been working class as far back as my parents can research. It's very difficult to find genealogical records for anyone who wasn't nobility going that far back, so if you can trace your ancestry to 1200AD it means that you had some connection to royalty.

[Hannah Bell]

79. yes, if you go back far enough. but you usually don't have to go back very far with any

two presidents.

to wit:

Obama and James Madison are third cousins, nine times removed (12 generations).

Obama and Harry Truman are seventh cousins, three times removed (10 generations).

Obama and Lyndon Johnson are fourth cousins, three times removed (7 generations).

Obama and Gerald Ford are tenth cousins, once removed (11 generations).

Obama and Jimmy Carter are eighth cousins, twice removed (10 generations).

Obama and George H.W. Bush are tenth cousins, once removed (11 generations).

Bush's maternal great(9)-grandfather, Samuel Hinckley (died in 1662), is Obama's maternal great(10)-grandfather. bush is descended through his son Thomas Hinckley, while Obama is descended through his daughter Susannah Hinckley. (Thus Obama is also a relation of assassin John Hinkley, as is Bush.)

Obama's related to 3 presidents in 10 generations or less. Likelihood of any two random people in the US having a common ancestor within 10 generations is <4% (assuming every generation produced 5 fertile children).

http://uspresidents.livejournal.com/37313.html.


and many working class people would be hard-pressed to trace their ancestry back more than 5 generations.

the upper classes are pretty easy to trace.

and since they tended to interbreed, they have fewer unique ancestors, which actually means less likelihood of peons being related to them, not more.

[Radical Activist]

80. And what do you think that proves?

You got very evasive the last time I tried getting you to state your point in all the genealogy lessons.

[Hannah Bell]

81. what's your problem? i think it proves most of our presidents came from the upper crust & are more

closely related than americans generally, as i already stated.

yes, there is a ruling class, sorry to break it to you.

[Radical Activist]

82. That's pretty obvious.

I don't get why you have so many genealogical posts proving something that everyone already knows.
That's one of the reasons that Lincoln, one of the few exceptions, is so celebrated. Although I bet he was related to royalty too, and most certainly his wife was.

[Hannah Bell]

89. my genealogical posts aren't about things most people already know.

most people don't, for example, "already know" that john hinckley's great grandpa was one of the founders/original funders (with jd rockefeller, marshall field & 3 others ) of the university of chicago.

nor do they "already know" that the dulles family has been closely associated with the duponts & the browns of brown brothers for multiple generations; that the dulles bros g-gpa was in fact an original partner in brown, shipley, the UK branch of the brown brothers interests -- and that shipley's family was closely connected to & intermarried with the duponts.

nor of bill richardson's blue-blood ancestry & his family's family ties to the somoza dictatorship.

nor of the farish (close associate of the bushes) family's 300-year history of wealth & family ties to rice university, james a baker (presidential fixer, baker-botts), howard hughes, robert lovett (harriman railroad interests, government), the harrimans themselves, the duponts, and others. marital & first, second & third cousin relationships.

nor do most people "already know" how many of the "poor boy makes good" stories in the media neglect to mention the wealthy connected father-in-law, the oil tycoon second cousin, grandpa's connection to rockefeller banking interests, etc.

nor do most people know how closely some of their local leaders are related to these dynasties; they don't know that, like banking families, the sons of wealth were sent to the frontier to plant the family flag, to claim & control territory for the family's larger game. thus we have scions of rockefellers & duponts as first settlers of towns in podunk, oregon, planting the first banks, stores, etc.

no, most people don't "already know" these things.

and most of them are things i learned by doing genealogical research and making the connections. they're not mentioned in news accounts, popular biographies, or popular histories.

[onpatrol98]

111. Very Interesting

I find it all truly, very interesting. The connections are astounding.

I wonder if deep seeded genetics play a part in the same groups of families always willing to run for a public office as well. So, they're of course, more likely to be in a public office. While other families are somewhat genetically, more likely to do something different.

I know I'm not making sense. But, this really is fascinating.

[Spider Jerusalem]

87. That doesn't actually prove much of anything, really

certainly not that there's a distinct political ruling class defined by blood ties. Anyone with traceable ancestry that goes back to the 1600's in New England, Virginia, or Maryland is going to find themselves related to lots of other people who share the same ancestry. (I'm related to Obama, Truman, Bill Clinton and Bush II, myself.) And we're not talking about 'any 2 random people', are we? No we aren't, we're talking about people whose American immigrant ancestry mostly goes back to the 1600's (which is a distinct and not random subgroup who are more likely to be related to one another).

Illustration of this: one of my 17th century immigrant ancestors was a Frenchman called Mareen Duvall. His descendants include Robert Duvall, John Waters, Dick Cheney, Harry Truman, Barack Obama, Gabriel Duvall (who was a US Supreme Court justice), Wallis Warfield Simpson (the Duchess of Windsor)...and probably tens or hundreds of thousands of not-very-notable people. The same could be said of pretty much any random 17th century immigrant who left descendants traceable to the present; they're likely to have some notable descendants, mmostly because of the NUMBER of descendants they have; most of them won't be very notable at all, though.

[Hannah Bell]

91. i never made the claim there is a ruling class defined by blood ties.

yes, people whose ancestors came to the us in the 1600s are more likely to be related to each other. that's kind of self-evident.

and yes, presidents aren't a random group (as i said). historically, they've been drawn mainly from the upper crust, who are more likely to have ancestry dating to the 1600-1700s. and they're more likely than average to share common ancestors with other presidents (as i said).

but most americans' ancestors immigrated after the 1700s.

so i'm not seeing what your point is.

[Spider Jerusalem]

95. Actually, most Americans are probably descended from at least some 17th century immigrants.

I've seen estimates that just the passengers on the Mayflower collectively have around 30 million descendants. And they comprise only one small group of 17th century immigrants (albeit one of the better-known ones).

And you DID make the claim that there is a ruling class defined by blood ties. 'Upper crust', 'more closely related than Americans in general'.

[Hannah Bell]

99. "more closely related than americans in general" isn't a synonym for "class defined by blood ties"

there is a ruling class. any two of its members are more likely to be related than any two random americans. however, it's not defined by blood ties in the manner of the crowned heads of europe.

and what i said re "upper crust," was:

"upper crust, who are more likely to have ancestry dating to the 1600-1700s."

[Contrary1]

90. Say What?????

James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Samuel Hinckley were/are all Kenyans?

Damn.

[Hannah Bell]

92. what's your problem?

[Contrary1]

93. Geez...a bit humor deprived much?

I have no problem.

[Hannah Bell]

94. was that humor?

[Contrary1]

96. Forgive me...I didn't realize who I was responding to. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

100. i posted about actual genealogical connections. your humor compared them to tinfoil birther bs.

the implication being that there was some similarity.

i don't see the humor. there's no similarity.

[onpatrol98]

110. Interbreeding

Interbreeding...so that's the problem with the ruling class.

B-)

[Hannah Bell]

77. the likelihood of any two random people being 9th or 10th cousins is actually not very high.

odds start rising quickly around 11.

our presidents aren't a random group, for various reasons: most of their ancestors were upper class, marrying within a very limited pool in an already limited pool (immigrants to the us).

they're more closely related than a random assortment of americans.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Harry Truman?

Really?

[Hannah Bell]

75. truman's rather closely related to several presidents. including obama.

7th cousin thrice removed, i.e. ruth lucille armour (obama's great grandmother) & truman were seventh cousins.

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/pdfs/obama_truman.pdf

[drm604]

9. I'm not sure that this proves anything about ruling families or serfs.

If you trace far enough we're probably all related.

It may be that you could choose 43 people at random and trace connections between King John and most of them.

[zipplewrath]

10. Becareful

The degree to which we are all "related" is not trivial. Go back far enough and your tree becomes hugely entangled in everyone elses.

This says more about the absurdity of european concepts of race, breeding, and class than anything else.

[izquierdista]

11. And probably all related to Ramses the Great

One thing he didn't do was to use the product that bears his name at convenience stores.

[shraby]

12. I'm calling bullpucky on her story. It takes more than months

to connect families back that far. Some people take years and years to make their trees and be accurate.

[TalkingDog]

16. I think she "cheated" and used matrilineal branches....

Although that is about the only way to assure a direct line. Just ask a Jewish mother.

[AspenRose]

32. The article said she did matrilineal and patrilineal lines

:shrug:

[TalkingDog]

58. Some people don't *ahem* read carefully..... (to put it lightly) nt

[AspenRose]

118. I'm talking about what the article said, not your assumption

"They are all cousins and all grandsons of John Lackland," BridgeAnne told KCOY News. The girl searched more than a half million names for months. She started with George Washington, **then traced both the male and female family lines to make the connection."**

The article and your assumption clash (yes I DARED to question your assumption). Which is why I did this :shrug: - another way of saying "who really knows."

So take your snark somewhere else.

[TalkingDog]

128. What's with all the snappy? I was agreeing with you.

I wasn't suggesting you weren't reading closely, but that other people (in this thread and on board in general...hell on any board I've ever been privy to) hadn't read very closely. And so didn't understand that it was easier and quicker because she had use matrilinal information.

Damn people are touchy.....

[AspenRose]

130. I'm sorry.

That wasn't clear to me. I apologize.

[TalkingDog]

132. Da Nada...Ain't no big thang. We're all a bit frazzled lately. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. +100 and a lot of PALEOGRAPHY

[Common Sense Party]

45. Most lines of presidents have already been extensively researched

and I'd bet that's all publicly available info. She probably just connected the trees, saw where they overlap.

[WolverineDG]

51. actually, it takes an account with Ancestry.com & clicking on the very helpful

"find famous ancestors" button.


dg

[pipi_k]

116. Oh yeah, the very helpful AND

very accurate "find famous ancestors" button...


Even those little revolving leaf things that appear sometimes on various ancestor names that allegedly point to other people who might have been related...

What they're going on is information...accurate or not...that others have put into their own family trees.

I was using Ancestry.com for a while, and sometimes the weirdest thing would happen...I would have an ancestor who was born, say, in the 1700s show up as being descended from someone who was born in the 1800s.

You gotta be real careful using those things.

[WolverineDG]

120. Ancestry does state that the information is only as accurate

as what members have provided & that you should check things out for yourself. Fortunately, I have my mom's charts to compare info I find there to & I know she did her homework.

dg

[pipi_k]

53. I've been at it for three years, and

haven't even gotten more than four generations back on my mom's side.

Of course, it's harder, because her grandmother had like six girls, and her grandfather has three (!!!) distinctly separate dates of birth listed, and he wasn't born in a hospital, which makes it that much more difficult...

[Jackpine Radical]

14. So, as a Dane,

do you suppose I'm related to Harald Bluetooth?

[dipsydoodle]

23. No

a dog. :)

[Jackpine Radical]

26. Woof.

Anyway, nobody has ever called me a GREAT Dane. Maybe at best a mediocre Dane.

[IrishEyes]

15. Me too.

I traced my genealogy a few months ago. I found out that I'm related to King John on my grandfather's side. Does this mean I can be president?

[TalkingDog]

20. Are you wealthy and connected? If not, can you become that way?

Answering yes to either of these questions improves your chances substantially.

[IrishEyes]

27. Unfortunately, no

Not yet at least but I'm still young. You never know what might happen if I work hard and put my mind to it. I'm not sure I would want to be president anyway. I think it is nice to be distantly related to Jefferson, Roosevelt and Kennedy. I could do without being related to Bush, Nixon and Reagan. That's just icky.

[mopinko]

17. is she mormon? or did she use their database?

it is full of bullshit, but it is very easily available. i have to suspect that is where this is coming from.

[TalkingDog]

21. IDK: Since they gave her full name, you might write her parents and ask.

[Gormy Cuss]

48. The LDS family history data does have lots of bad info, but there are plenty of good lineages

available for prominent families and for all presidents. Cutting and pasting from other's work though wouldn't meet the standards of professional genealogists but for a twelve year old it would be a fun project.

Here's hoping she didn't rely on any of the work of Gustav Anjou.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Anjou

[dipsydoodle]

19. I don't believe this

Period.

The problem is crossing the mid 1500's threashdold when parish records were changed from vellum to paper and those transcribing the old records made some classic name changes. Getting the right staff was a problem even in those days. :)

Nice fairy tale though.

[Retrograde]

22. BFD: all it "proves" is that they mostly are of English descent

Martin van Buren's ancestors were Dutch, which is why he doesn't show up. England's a small place, and if you go back far enough you're going to bump into common ancestors. Plus, they have good records that are more easily accessible for American researchers than many other countries.

I am a little surprised that Kennedy had English ancestors, though.

[a la izquierda]

107. Why are you surprised about Kennedy?

The English had a colonization project of Ireland, insofar as English lords moved onto Irish lands and worked the Irish as slaves. As we know from US history, many masters forced themselves upon their female slaves.
That's how one might be Irish, yet have English ancestors. I have English ancestors, yet my Grandpa was born in Ireland, as were his ancestors.

[dpbrown]

24. Everybody's related to John Lackland

I traced my family tree back through at least two ancestors to King John. That was a thousand years ago. All lines connect when you go back that far.

[Common Sense Party]

46. What, did he sow his seed with wild abandon?

I'm not related to anyone royal, so far as I know

[Crystal Clarity]

25. Fascinating!

And the young girl is pretty amazing herself. I hope she gets to meet Obama.

BTW, if you go far enough back we all are related. I read somewhere that the most distantly related one human being can be from another is no more then 50th cousin.

[WinkyDink]

29. In the future, they'll all be descended from the Duggars.

[texanwitch]

31. Just think if all the Duggar kids have 19 or 20 kids each.

They could settle their own town, Duggarville.

[snooper2]

122. the genetic mutations will start being pretty scary

after the third generation of Duggars :)

[pipi_k]

54. Ummmm......

:rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. OMG, it's some kind of conspiracy?

What's that? Six degrees of separation?

Isn't six the mark of the beast or somethin?

[eShirl]

35. Big deal, I'm related to John Lackland, too. Doesn't mean Jack Squat.

So are thousands if not millions of other people at this point.

[Rowdyboy]

36. So all our presidents have been great grandchildren of Eleanor of Aquitaine....

How wickedly delicious....

[JVS]

41. Oh no! The Van Buren gang is going to be pissed!

[Warren DeMontague]

37. Oh, for fuck's sake. We're all related. I'm related to my cat, if you go back far enough.

Further back, you're related to a carrot.

[Subdivisions]

40. Is 6000 years long enough to make your statement true? n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

43. No.

But, if I smoked enough crack, it might be.

[pipi_k]

55. One of my cousins and I have decided that, in addition to sharing a

great grandfather, we also have a common ancestor named "One-celled Pierre"....an amoeba that lived in France about 3.5 billion years ago.

[Warren DeMontague]

57. Oui, Oui.

Would you believe there's not a picture of an Amoeba wearing a beret on the internet? The best I could do was one wearing a santa hat.

[pipi_k]

67. bwahahahah....thank you!!!

If it's OK with you, can I save that and email it to my cousin?

She'd get a huge kick out of it...

:7

[TalkingDog]

60. Try a Trilobyte and I'd agree....

n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

63. You don't agree about the carrot?

Anyway, I've tried Trilobyte. Tastes like chicken.

[Hannah Bell]

97. "if you go back far enough". that's the point. you don't have to go back very far to find

common ancestry between many presidents.

nowhere near as far as john lackland.

[Warren DeMontague]

101. Yeah, I heard that Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt were even sort of related.

Still, I'm less than terrified at the news.

[Hannah Bell]

103. was someone on this thread terrified? i didn't see that.

[Spider Jerusalem]

102. You don't have to go back that far to find common ancestry...

between most people whose ancestors come from a geographically limited area in a specific period, though. You seem to have a failure of understanding where this is concerned, for some reason.

[Hannah Bell]

104. i think the failure of understanding is yours. perhaps you'd better reread my posts.

[Spider Jerusalem]

105. Not so much

I've read your posts. You display a pretty basic lack of understanding of the nature of genealogical relationships, and of the probability that two people from a common ancestral ethnic background will share ancestors (in many cases very probably much more recently than the 13th century). So many US presidents share more recent ancestry than King John; so what? So do most people who have a 17th century New England immigrant ancestor. (Or most people who have a 17th century Virginia or Maryland ancestor.) The commonality here? English ancestry. Nothing more, really.

[Hannah Bell]

106. english ancestry? really? mareen duvall? livingston? schuyler?

van rensselaer? delano? beaky?

german is the most common american ancestry, not english.

most americans don't have multiple ancestors who were here in the 17th century. most presidents do.

e.g. george bush has 4 alone who were on the mayflower, not to mention that most of the rest were here before 1680. not to mention that most were gentry. not to mention that gentry married gentry.

and even a blue-blood like bush has only about 65% english ancestry:

39.099 121 093 75 % English
25.585 937 5 % Unknown (presumably English)
12.109 375 % German
4.687 5 % Unknown (presumably German)
3.906 25 % Unknown
3.747 558 593 75 % Welsh
3.173 828 125 % Irish
2.075 195 312 5 % French
1.660 156 25 % Scottish
1.562 5 % Italian
0.781 25 % Unknown (presumably Scottish)
0.732 421 875 % Dutch
0.390 625 % Moravian
0.390 625 % Unknown (presumably Swedish)
0.048 828 125 % Belgian
0.048 828 125 % Swedish
===================================================

http://www.wargs.com/political/bush.html

[Spider Jerusalem]

113. Sorry, but...you're wrong

German is the most common self-reported ancestry in the most recent census. In 1980 it was English. Most people of English ancestry self-report their ethnicity as 'American' in recent censuses. And again, I suspect you're probably wrong about most Americans not having multiple ancestors here in the 17th century; they may not necessarily be AWARE of them. Doesn't mean they don't HAVE them. The average person probably couldn't tell you their own ancestry beyond their great-grandparents, and probably has no idea of their family origin beyond the most recent immigrant (who may have arrived in the 19th century).

I'm not particularly notable or blue-blooded, nor are my family; but 75% of my immigrant ancestors arrived before 1700, and 85% of them were English. In certain parts of the country I would guess that such ancestry is more likely the rule than the exception (particularly in the South and in New England). Also: English ancestry is the common tie that relates all of these Presidents to John, not Dutch or French or anything else (Mareen Duvall's antecedents are unknown); and in most cases there's nothing especially notable about the descendants of 17th century colonial-era Americans being related to one another (because there were NOT very many Europeans in America then, but as a group they have tens of millions of descendants today).

[Hannah Bell]

125. mareen duvall is the common ancestor between obama & truman & obama & VP cheney.

Another common Truman-Obama ancestor, Christian Goodnight, was originally Gutnecht.

phillip ament & wife maria schmidt, common ancestors of obama & president johnson, = german.

english ancestry may be the common tie that relates all the presidents to an english royal from 800 years back, but it's not the only tie that relates them to each other.

you & george bush then share english ancestry of about 65%.

Most of the ancestors of *most* americans immigrated after 1700. Your contention that most americans have multiple pre-1700 ancestors is mathematically impossible. In 2000 alone, 11% of the us population was *born* elsewhere.

[Spider Jerusalem]

126. Most of the ancestors of most Americans may have in fact emigrated after 1700.

But that doesn't preclude them from having ancestors who emigrated prior to 1700, and in fact due to intermarriage most Americans of European ancestry are more likely than not to have 17th century immigrant ancestors (you appear not to understand how the mathematics involved actually work). People may only be aware of more recent ancestry in most cases; it's certainly not mathematically impossible (I'll concede it may be half, and not 'most', but it's still a sizeable percentage...and in parts of the country more likely than not a majority).

[Hannah Bell]

127. no, when 1/3 of the population is descended from immigrants who came post-1930,

it doesn't preclude their having multiple ancestors (a la bush) who were here before 1700, but it makes it less likely & the possible number of such ancestors smaller. through the very principles of assortative mating you keep referring to, i.e. first-generation immigrants are more likely to marry within their own group, & more recent immigrants were more likely to settle outside new england.

"half" is a fraction pulled out of the air.

[proteus_lives]

38. Interesting story. I'll keep an eye out to see if it pans out.

But your "serf" angle is silly.

You go back far enough and we're all related.

[malaise]

39. Fabulous

Loved the comment about women's studies. Bravo BridgeAnne, 18th cousin of Obama.

[Rabrrrrrr]

42. Wow - she found a bunch of European-descents related to someone who died 800 years ago?

And this makes the news.... why?

:shrug:

Probably 95% of anyone in America with European blood is related to King John.

Total fucking non-news story.

And your statement "Now do you get it, serfs? Between the ruling family and corporate persons, there is no room for the great unwashed to have a say" is quite preposterous.

This is no different than the haughty shitbags who say irrelevant shit like "I'm related to Henry VIII!" or some other ancient famous person. Whoopty fucking do - you and 800 million other people, dickweed.

[uppityperson]

44. Sounds like a fun project for a 12 yr old.

[Liquorice]

49. Well most people are related to royalty. I traced my ancestry back to all kinds of royalty,

including Charlemagne and many other famous people in history. Given enough information and time, your ancestry could also be traced to Charlemagne as well. It's just easier to trace the presidents because they have official biographers, etc., and so a lot of the work is already done.

[WolverineDG]

50. Holy crap! I'm related to almost all of the Presidents!

:wow:

dg

[PufPuf23]

56. How does this fit in with the alledged Illuminati families?

sort of serious lol

[TalkingDog]

61. I have no idea, I'm not versed in that particular subject. I posted a snarky take on a simple story

and folks get their bloomers wedged up in their cracks for some reason.

For god's sake don't give them any more red meat....

[izzybeans]

64. Girl Traces Mothers Sexual Partners Back to Teh Bacon, Teh Kevin Bacon. Series!!!

He got totally Footloose one night and unleashed his demon seed onto the world. Branched out and now we are all connected.

[madinmaryland]

65. I am descended from Jesus. So I got everyone beat!!

:D

[pipi_k]

68. That means you're also descended from God...

who is your great-grandfather times 1,000

[madinmaryland]

131. And it is true that God is a Dallas Cowboys fan. They put the hole in the roof

so that he could watch his favourite team!!

:D

[dsc]

66. I actually did guess that it was

van buren.

[eppur_se_muova]

69. Actually, my first guess was van Buren. :^)

I heard he's related to King Zod of Albania.

[earth mom]

70. Did she trace Al Gore's roots back too and is he related too?

If not, maybe that's why the presidency was stolen from him. :tinfoilhat:

[Juche]

71. Its the fourth dimensional reptilians

Why reptilians from the 4th dimension would have DNA similar to our own, I don't know.

[RandomThoughts]

72. You make a comment.

Now do you get it, serfs? Between the ruling family and corporate persons, there is no room for the great unwashed to have a say.

And that is exactly what some think. If they believe that, then what is the reason for that?

Because it benefits them is what they are told, but their is a brutal twist to it.

What they call the unwashed masses, may be them, since such an action is pretty dirty. Although it depends how you look at things.


But anyways, you are right that some people think that way. They literally think people should not decide their own futures and destiny, and what is worse is they think they know better, although that is in contradiction to there view.

Its not anything new, its slavery, oppression and ownership of peoples thoughts. If you let someone else decide for you, or tell you what you have to think or do, then you are there slave. And they need people to do what they say to have any effect, since they can not do anything on their own.

It really is peoples choices, the toughest choice is what many in leadership positions have decide, to not join their thought process, and not believe that way. When a person gets some influence, they get the offer to join that thought process, then, heh, funny as it is, they actually become slaves to that process.

So don't be to mad at them, many people in that group can no longer make free will choices, when they join that thought of some people do not matter, they start following another group, and then their own thoughts don't matter as they are enslaved, it is almost like the offer to be a slave master is used to enslave people. I find that ironic but in some way just.

[Jennicut]

78. My ancestry goes all the way back to King Louis IV of France and I can belong to the DAR if I want

to...DAR is Daughters of the American Revolution. I am not rich or powerful by any means. Essentially, if you had relatives from England or France, you might be able to find some common ancestors. My family is really English and French on my Dad's side.

[REP]

83. Jamestowne Society and DAR here .... When do I get to be Pres?

[Hannah Bell]

84. Having ancestors at jamestown doesn't make you ruling class, nor does dar membership.

[alcibiades_mystery]

109. Suuuuuure...

:rofl:

[grantcart]

85. PBS did a series about this a couple of months ago

Because powerful people in the distant past had more children and their children were more likely to live and procreate, and given how after a few generations the number of ancestors starts to increase geometrically, and given the fact that if you go back 30 generations an living person would have 2,147,483,648 potential ancestors backward.

Of course the ancestors are not going to be discreet individuals, most of them will eventually overlap. However it shows that if you go back 30 generations and identify ANY famous individual who had known descendents that there is a very high chance that most living descendents of that racial group would have at least one drop of blood.

This is particularly true in societies that had more of a meritocracy into the upper clases like the English or the Germans where you could achieve upper class status with outstanding achievements on the battlefield, as opposed to India where the classes were based on strict racial or tribal definitions.

[Land Shark]

88. King John (d. 19 Oct. 1216) has been on a major comeback since around 1944

"Matthew Paris wrote, 'Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the presence of King John' , and this pretty well sums up John's reputation--until 1944, that is.

"For in that year Professor Galbraith demonstrated in a lecture to an astonished world that the chief chronicle source for the reign of John was utterly unreliable. Since then bad King John has been getting better and better, until now he is nearly well again, and a leading scholar in the field has seriously warned us that the twentieth century could well create it own John myth." http://www.theharmons.us/harmon_t/b1433.htm

[alcibiades_mystery]

108. All kings' sons

The old joke among Irish Americans was that they were ALL related to the kings of Ireland.

Here's a little hint, folks: 90% of "genealogy" is bullshit. Including this. I know, I know...you have an ancestor that won the Battle of Hastings, etc. I get it..you're super special!

[Jennicut]

115. That is the point, we are almost all related essentially if you go back far enough.

That is what is so stupid about racism and nationalism, etc. We all came from the same place, pretty much. Even Dick Cheney and Obama are related.

[Sherman A1]

112. I can trace back to Charlemagne through a very

very, very convoluted path on my Mother's side, so I am too probably related to a bunch of them....

So, that and $2.00 will buy you a cup of coffee.:shrug:

[Kablooie]

117. Whoa! John Lackland was "Prince John", Robin Hood's enemy.

So I'm related to Prince John?

(GW was my great, great, great, great, great, great uncle. I'm descended from John Washington, his younger brother.)

[mmonk]

119. My family tree has a Duke.

I'm waiting on my status upgrade.

[Xithras]

123. Honestly, it's a simple math issue.

The average generation, for the past couple thousand years anyway, has lasted about 24 years, or 4.16 generations per century. Given his death in 1216, that means 33.28 generations have passed since King John left this world. To simplify math, I'm just going to round down to 33 generations.

Each generation has two parents per person so, to calculate the number of people present in each preceding generation, you have to take the number of people alive during each generation and double it (you are descended from two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, etc). What's that mean for a person born today? Calculating back 33 generations, this gives each of us potentially 4.3 billion unduplicated ancestors that were alive 794 years ago. This number is obviously nowhere NEAR correct, especially as the population in Britain, Wales, and Scotland was only about 4 million total at the time (you may see higher numbers elsewhere, but those numbers often include the population of portions of mainland Europe which were under English control).

So what's this mean? To put it simply, any person of British descent today could potentially be related to every single person who lived in Britain in 1200 AD. It also means that practically every person in Britain today has a family tree that heavily weaves back in on itself (nothing unusual there, in small villages of any culture, most people are related to each other once you get out more than three or four generations).

I remember getting excited many years ago when I learned that I was related to King John. My enthusiasm was quickly quashed when I was told that most people with ancestors from southern England can trace a relationship to him (so can much of Northern France, for that matter). Because of the passage of time and simple math, his genes spread far and wide.

[DatManFromNawlins]

124. I am related to zero royalty that I am aware of

I have traced back every single branch of my family tree as far back as genealogical records can go, as far back as the 1300s. The vast majority of my ancestors were German and French, with one small branch in the distant past coming from the Canary Islands, and another from Indian tribes in Canada. There's a possibility that one branch was, at one point, Swiss/German nobility, but there is no proof of this.

[Dreamer Tatum]

129. John Lackland, greatest birddogger of all time nt