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grandpa Charlemagne
The fourth of July always makes me think about genealogy, because I had ancestors running around the east coast in 1776, and I like to wonder what they were up to that summer, where they were, what they thought when they heard what the continental congress was up to. This is the stuff of historical fiction, as far as I'm concerned. The most interesting stories come out of considering the people who didn't make it into the history books.The mathematical study of genealogy indicates that everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti and Confucius, and everyone of European ancestry is descended from Muhammad and Charlemagne
"The Royal We" (April 2002) The Atlantic Monthly
I have spent a good amount of time on genealogy research, which I consider an off shoot of both my addiction to the history of the masses and my compulsive questing for new stories. One of things that has always bothered me is the simple mathematical improbability of the whole venture, genealogically speaking. My husband, the mathematician, tells me that my 10x great grandparents (a couple of whom I can actually name) number 1,024 individuals. That's right. You have, I have 1,024 great great great great great great great great great grandparents. So I can say with some certainly that I'm descended from the Witch of Wallingford -- Winifred King (tried for witchcraft the *third* time in 1697, but again got away intact) -- but really, what does that mean? There were another thousand people around who were also my ancestors, half of them in Italy at that point in time.
There's a great article in The Atlantic Monthly. (citation above) which made me laugh out loud, because it addressed this rather obsessive thought of mine directly. It's about a mathematician who started mucking around in genealogy. Here's a good bit:
In a 1999 paper titled "Recent Common Ancestors of All Present-Day Individuals," Chang showed how to reconcile the potentially huge number of our ancestors with the quantities of people who actually lived in the past. His model is a mathematical proof that relies on such abstractions as Poisson distributions and Markov chains, but it can readily be applied to the real world. Under the conditions laid out in his paper, the most recent common ancestor of every European today (except for recent immigrants to the Continent) was someone who lived in Europe in the surprisingly recent past—only about 600 years ago. In other words, all Europeans alive today have among their ancestors the same man or woman who lived around 1400. Before that date, according to Chang's model, the number of ancestors common to all Europeans today increased, until, about a thousand years ago, a peculiar situation prevailed: 20 percent of the adult Europeans alive in 1000 would turn out to be the ancestors of no one living today (that is, they had no children or all their descendants eventually died childless); each of the remaining 80 percent would turn out to be a direct ancestor of every European living today.Note the sentence I've highlighted: In other words, all Europeans alive today have among their ancestors the same man or woman who lived around 1400.
Now, who was that person? A woman married three times, bearing sixteen children, who then died of exhaustion at age 40? Of course she (I'm thinking of this person as a woman, I'm not sure why) had no idea that this remarkable sentence would ever be written about her, and she most probably she would have smacked the person who told her so, and soundly. A woman with sixteen children would have very little patience with soothsayers and fortune tellers. She'd say, forget the illusions of grandeur, bub, I got a houseful of hungry kids here and my husband is down at the pub again. Or: mother to millions? Hey, I've got my hands full as it is. Or: that and a copper ha'penny will buy me a loaf of bread.
And what language would she use to berate the time traveler who came to see her? Breton? Tuscan? Frankish?
Is your head spinning? Mine is, but in a good way.
July 4, 2004 12:08 PM
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Comments
Sara,
I read that article a while ago too. I got a little lost in the explination of it all but came away thinking his theory possible. I am addicted to that Atlantic Monthly, though 5 months behind. (My vacation is coming up.....maybe I'll be able to catch up)
I am a member of the DAR. My mother's cousin did all the work with the help of an out of print book that chrolicles the History of the Sayre family back to the 1300's. One Benjamin Sayre was caught in a little scirmish in New Jersey is the one connecting me to the Revolution in the Colonies) I too have tried to imagine faces and lives when looking at the names. Think of all of those whose names and places of birth have not been uncovered.....If there is such a place like heaven, when I get there I will immediatly ask to see the archives.
Cynthia in Florida
I am now going to enter your newest book givaway. Wish me luck!!
Posted by: Cynthia at July 5, 2004 06:14 AM
Archives in heaven? Well, good. I like that idea. And if we're going to cast ideal heavens here, in my version I'm going to interview each and every one of my ancestors. Hey, I've got eternity, right? I'm going to start with the grandmother I was named for, because she's always eluded me.
Oh and, The Atlantic Monthly. I like it too. You should know that nobody ever keeps up. It's impossible.
Posted by: sara at July 5, 2004 07:36 AM
The most interesting stories come out of considering the people who didn't make it into the history books.
Hi Sara,
I know what you mean. Joss Whedon said something a while back that stuck with me. He said good storytelling doesn't come from writing about the people who wrote history, but from the people that history walked on.
Posted by: Tracey at July 9, 2004 10:47 AM
I'm wallowing (foundering maybe?) in one of the lines of my husband's family right now. I suspect genealogical research is my version of fishing. The husband goes away on a weekend with the guys, catches something, throws it back, comes back rejuvenated. I spend a few obsessive hours at the keyboard, swatting children ("What? Didn't I just give you a snack...oh...three hours ago, eh?") and searching the 1901 Canadian Census records for recognizable names. I don't catch much - well, probably as much as he does. I throw back a few improbable connections.
Incidentally - the Canadian Census of 1901, the way I've chosen to search it, is a photo of the actual page from the census record. And what truly fine handwriting some census takers had back then. I usually start out cursing those whose penmanship just wasn't up to snuff, but then I remember that they were probably tired at the end of a long day, and sure enough, the next page looks like they made a fresh start, and I can decipher an "s" from an "a" once more. That's a story - census-takers in 1901 - were they confounded by immigrants' names? Did they just write down what they thought sounded right? Did they get the person to write it out, if they could write? I always wonder that.
Posted by: Pam at July 9, 2004 11:46 AM