If You Are European You Are Probably Related To Charlemagne!

While researching my wife's family tree, I found one of those "web" constructions mentioned in the article. 13 generations ago, two siblings generated two separate family lines, which then rejoined 8 generations later.
And while I haven't been able to fill out my own tree as fully, I'm sure the same has happened there. I have been able to trace a few direct lineages back to the 1500's but have seen little geographical spread. All my dad's ancestors seem to be from the same small region of Finland, and the same holds for my Mom's for a different region of Finland. I have noted that on my Mother's side, a few of my direct ancestors married wives with the same surname, which might mean something along those lines (but when it comes to Finish lineages, It could just as easily not. Surnames did not always pass directly down and could change from generation to generation, or, as was the case of my grandfather, even for a person over the course of his own life.) But with all those generations contained to relatively small regions, It's a guarantee that family lines separated and rejoined along the way.
 
And if you are eastern European, like me, you could be related to both Charlemagne and Genghis Khan.
Does it matter greatly?
 
I guess I don't find that all that interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if we all had some of Mohammad's and Geingis Khan's genes as well. The way genes propagate and the way those fuckers raped and planted their seed, I consider it likely that most of us will have a bit of them in their ancestry.
 
My mom wanted to do a family tree thing where you mail in some saliva...

And the only thought I could muster was: wouldn't it be better to take a blood test?
 
Interestingly enough, not any longer. The cell cultures they grow from your saliva will return the same results as the blood. In fact, the cells inside your mouth culture way better since they grow quite rapidly.
 
superstring01 said:
I guess I don't find that all that interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if we all had some of Mohammad's and Geingis Khan's genes as well. The way genes propagate and the way those fuckers raped and planted their seed, I consider it likely that most of us will have a bit of them in their ancestry.
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I think many people alive today probably have some DNA from a former member of royalty, especially if this member of royalty had many children.
 
My only claim to any relationship to someone famous is the fact that I share a common ancestor with Otto Manninen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Manninen, and he's only well known in Finland.
My sister once met a relative without even knowing it. When talking to her about what I had found out, I happened to mention that one of our distance relatives had been one of the first woman Lutheran pastors and had a congregation out on the East coast. When I said her name, my sister said "I met her". This happened when she lived in Maine for a few years. She said that they had commented on having the same last name (It is not a common one), but that was it, but never really considered that it could have been due to being related.
 
Beer w/Straw said:
My mom wanted to do a family tree thing where you mail in some saliva...

And the only thought I could muster was: wouldn't it be better to take a blood test?
Click to expand...
The TV show 'Marketplace' did a report on those things a little while ago. They sent a guy's samples (blood or saliva) to three different labs and got three very different results - all inconclusive as to the main question he had, which was about genetic predisposition to specific illness.
Big waste of money, it seems like.
 
Janus58 said:
My only claim to any relationship to someone famous is the fact that I share a common ancestor with Otto Manninen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Manninen, and he's only well known in Finland.
My sister once met a relative without even knowing it. When talking to her about what I had found out, I happened to mention that one of our distance relatives had been one of the first woman Lutheran pastors and had a congregation out on the East coast. When I said her name, my sister said "I met her". This happened when she lived in Maine for a few years. She said that they had commented on having the same last name (It is not a common one), but that was it, but never really considered that it could have been due to being related.
Click to expand...

As the saying goes it is a small world!
 
mmatt9876 said:
I have come across an article stating that if you have European ancestry you are probably related to King Charlemagne! I found it interesting so I thought I would share the article I read.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...-genetic-ancestry-charlemagne-adam-rutherford
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I am not to sure of that. Charlemagne period was around 742 - 814 of the Roman empire , the Greek ortodox
church, separated by pagans were up to about 11 th century from Roman Catholics so I have my reservation if the West spread its semen in the east.
 
mmatt9876 said:
As the saying goes it is a small world!
Click to expand...
I think I might have to take back my previous claim of only having one known "famous" relation. I was in a conversation with someone on another board who was trying to trace his ancestry. He was basing his search on his last name. It was pointed out to him that having the same last name wasn't evidence of being related, as sometimes the same name can have separate origins. I was going to use an example to illustrate. A couple of Winter Olympics ago, their was a cross-country skier from Finland who won a metal and who happened to have the same last name as my Mother's surname. At the time, I pretty much put it down to coincidence. While it is an uncommon name in The US, I wasn't sure how common it was in Finland, and I felt that the odds weren't that high that she was of any relation.
To illustrate the point, I looked up her profile on Wikipedia to note where she was born, fully expecting her birth place to be well separated from that part of Finland where my Mom's family came from. As it turned out, she was born exactly in the same place (Kangasniemi). Now I know that I had relatives that still lived there when this Cross-country skier was born, as my Mom and sister took a trip to Finland and visited them around that time. So suddenly the chances of her being a relative have increased substantially.
 
timojin said:
I am not to sure of that. Charlemagne period was around 742 - 814 of the Roman empire , the Greek ortodox
church, separated by pagans were up to about 11 th century from Roman Catholics so I have my reservation if the West spread its semen in the east.
Click to expand...

I believe a simple round of DNA tests could prove or disprove there being Charlemagne DNA is Eastern Europeans.
 
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