A World of Probabilities (Common Ancestry)

Up until this point, we have been discussing specific terms and a case study for descent. But Charlemagne presents us with yet another interesting case that we should assess before we move on. The concept I want to discuss today is the probability of descent. While this isn't necessarily a dynastological topic, it does have some interesting connections to the study.

Every person has a probability of descent from someone. My surname is Whaley. There was once a regicide in England named Edward Whalley. The comparison is obvious which thus presents a probability of descent. How do I determine if there actually is a descent? I research it, of course, to prove it true.

Here's a better example: my great grandmother's maiden name was Bruce. There was a King Robert the Bruce in Scotland around 1300. There's the obvious probability of descent. Now, the problem that needs assessment is what specifically is the probability of descent? I have heard my family members say many times that they are descended from this medieval hero of Scotland, but is there truth to the story? Unfortunately, no, there is not, for one very important reason: Robert the Bruce left no surviving male issue to carry on the Bruce name. Okay, well technically he had a son but his son died without issue. In any case, his claim to the throne passed through his daughter to the Stewart family. I don't know of any Stewart ancestry in my blood so the probability grows slim. Now the probability that I descend from someone with the surname "Bruce" is a certainty, and since it is an old Franco-Scottish name, it is likely that it descends from a common ancestor of Robert the Bruce, but I do not descend from Robert himself, at least not in a male (surname-passing) line.

Now this seems unimportant and distant from dynastology, but in fact is directly connected to it. Historically, royalty regard themselves as relatives - cousins, if you will. This was a fairly valid suggestion by the 1500s as virtually all European royalty from the lowliest sovereign count to the mighty emperors were related, at least distantly. But this concept is older than that. Everyone held Adam to be a common ancestor, and pagan tradition also established the German creator-god Woden as a common ancestor. Even in Roman times virtually all families were descended from gods, which were all, of course, related. This all important idea was based on a primitive conception that everyone is related somehow. We are all cousins on this great earth. Dynastically-speaking, that could be dangerous too.

If someone could claim descent from, say, Charlemagne; they could claim that they have the right to rule somewhere. Honestly, it didn't happen as much as expected; the concept of the Divine Right of Kings was nowhere near universal at the turn of the first millennium. However, during the chaos left behind the fall of the Carolingians, many nobles rose up in Germany and France claiming both an ancestry from Charlemagne or some older king such as Clovis, and the power and desire to assert that claim. The main case I can remember is that of Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, who only claimed the throne from his brother-in-law Edward the Confessor, but claimed a descent from Alfred the Great, a claim that has never been completely proven. Had Harold survived the first year of his reign (William the Conqueror did his thing that same year), his dynasty would have continued the old but based on extremely dubious linkage. If you look across the landscape of Dark Age Europe, this is very common.

Another issue that this brings up is the concept of the Common Ancestor. Is there actually one? If you are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim you probably believe in an Adam and Eve who were the first humans some 6000 years ago or so. Certainly, many other religions also follow a similar vein of thought. It makes sense, all of us people here looking largely the same, being able to procreate and speak, etc. We are a species and we are all similar in many ways, so certainly we have a common ancestor! In fact, we probably all do.

Recent evidence suggests that all people of western European descent have a common ancestor who lived just about 1000 years ago. Wow. That is not that long ago at all. You know who else lives 1000 years ago? A lot of early medieval royalty. And as I just stated, all royalty is related and I'd predict that people descend from at least one royal. The good news: if you descend from one, you descend from many more. That is the power of royal marriages in an ancestral tree. If we are all descended from, say, William the Conqueror, then we have ancient Danish and Swedish royal ancestry as well as Charlemagne in our pedigrees. In fact, pretty much every European royal is descended from Charlemagne eventually, so in all likelihood we all are Charlemagne's progeny.

In case you aren't of European stock, though, you may have to look farther back. Some have speculated that all Europeans and Asians descend from Ghengis Khan in the late 1200s, and the sheer number and geographic expanse of his descendants suggests that this may be roughly true. So we all may be Ghengis' children too. Once you include Africa into the equation, our common ancestor gets pushed back to between 8000 and 2000 years ago. And if you add in America, it actually stays roughly the same since virtually all native groups in America have at least one European or African ancestor (the date gets pushed back up to 20,000 years if some of the Amazon tribes are truly discovered to be pure descent from the ancient Paleolithic hunter-gatherers). In any case, it wasn't that long ago that some couple produced the entire population of the Earth.

My final point is this: Technically everyone has more than one billion ancestors if you just go back 30 generations. That is an amazingly massive amount! But pedigree collapse occurs when cousins, even distant ones, marry each other. Eventually, the family tree becomes not even a hundredth that size. Pedigree collapse is the reason why genealogies can be traced back 30 generations, sometimes with little difficulty. Dynasties are formed out of these claims to ancient common ancestors that may or may not have existed or been their ancestor, but real individuals existed back then that all people today are descended from. In Western Europe, it is almost certain that Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and many of their relatives are ancestors of all western Europeans. Genghis Khan too may be all our ancestors. The importance of their place in history, therefore, should never be neglected.