McCain, bush, Churchill, Lyndon Johnson, Truman, Ford, Georgia O'Keefe, the Duchess of Windsor and two men who signed the Declaration of Independence.
Most surprisingly, Obama -- the man who could become America's first African-American president -- is linked by ancestry to Robert E. Lee, who commanded the armies of the Southern slave-holding states during the American civil war.
What happens to the other black sheep? All these famous people have genealogists tracing relationships to the great and the good, but nary a sheep stealer, highwayman, bigamist or common criminal among them in a period of hundreds of years Our aristocracy, on the other hand, invariably throws up some murderous individual or illegitimate ancestor, at the very least, in their history Think of the glamour in Mrs Clinton being able to claim that she was a descendant of a famous, powerful,ambitious liar, who got power by cheating, or of some fearsome woman who succeeded her husband after his demise.We have had quite a few of those in British history, that's certain e.g. Harold II got power by cheating and lying but was defeated at the Battle of Hastings ( by an illegitimate man, as it happens).
Winston Churchill figures a lot in these American ancestries. He had an American mother. Her family must have got about a bit in the past !
Somebody over there claimed that McCain has Robert the Bruce in his family history. The Times found this amusing. They found a Scots historian who said that ancestries from that period were impossible to do. All was guesswork, wild speculation and hopeless dead ends.However, there must be at least 200 million people alive today who could be of that line.
I've been researching my family tree for some years now, and I noticed something interesting:
Every time you go back one generation, the number of your direct ancestors doubles (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, etc.)
I was able to make it back 16 generations along one line, and I found that I had to develop a numbering system to identify their position in my family tree because in that 16th generation, 65,536 people were directly responsible for my birth. Robert Kynge, born in Holland in 1586, was to me #16-7179.
Think about it guys. Go back far enough and you can call Idi Amin Dada your long lost uncle.
Posts: 94 | Location: United States | Registered: 06-01-08
"I've been researching my family tree for some years now, and I noticed something interesting:
Every time you go back one generation, the number of your direct ancestors doubles (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, etc.)"
I think most people have long been aware of the geometric progression in ancestry.
Using 25 years as a generation, at some point from about 1000CE to 1200CE, the number of ancestors of living people today is greater than the population; thus, it is almost a certainty we are almost universally cousins. The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of the Western world occurs no more recent than about 800CE, and may be as long ago as 3000BCE.
Other interesting things (Few of which can be proven, but most of which are very likely. Eventually, DNA will prove much of this.) -
It is estimated that no native of English stock in the UK is greater than 30th cousins.
Much of Western Europe is descended from Charlemagne.
Confucius (Kǒng Fūzǐ; K'ung-fu-tzu)(551 BCE - 479 BCE), whose grandfather was known as a famous man (at that time), has numerous known descendants today, one of whom is his 80th G-Grandson.
Thomas Jefferson's DNA shows that he had Phoenician ancestors.
There is is tribe in Africa whose DNA prove that they are descended from Hebrew priests bout the time of Moses. (The implication is that they are descended from Aaron.) Many aspects of their culture show commonality with known Hebrew practices from that time.
About .5% of all humans today are probably descended from Genghis Kahn.
Mathematical models show that not much longer before the MRCA, everyone in that population was either the ancestor of everyone alive today or the ancestor of no one alive today.
Close to half of the US Presidents are related within 10 degrees of cousin.
Just over half of the US Presidents are proven descendants of an English king.
And, finally, none of my ancestors was in the Americas prior to about 1872.
Posts: 16773 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
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Our aristocracy, on the other hand, invariably throws up some murderous individual or illegitimate ancestor, at the very least, in their history 
Think of the glamour in Mrs Clinton being able to claim that she was a descendant of a famous, powerful,ambitious liar, who got power by cheating, or of some fearsome woman who succeeded her husband after his demise.We have had quite a few of those in British history, that's certain e.g. Harold II got power by cheating and lying but was defeated at the Battle of Hastings ( by an illegitimate man, as it happens). 
