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I had no idea... all new territory for me, so thank you for explaining, PA.
But, I'm curious if some people do this in order to find possible inheritances? I'm asking as I explained in a post long ago, that I was once contacted via snail mail by people claiming to be kin in Russia, saying they're distant cousins... they reported to have a similar name... enclosed was a list of designer jeans & sneakers with sizes for about 10 people they wanted mailed to them, as well as $300 for a car they needed. The note included the phrase 'rich American cousins'. It was not a request, it was a demand. Funny thing is... we're not Russian! I didn't reply, they never sent another letter... must have then switched to Nigeria & begun sending out emails to others.
So, if blood tests put my info into a database, would it open up my immediate family to potential lawsuits when one of us dies & leaves our $ & homes to known relatives... only to have someone with a blood test from the Continent contact a lawyer & want a piece of their history?
I'm not giving you a hard time... it's a sincere q... do we unnecessarily open up our lives to strangers/swindlers by having our DNA info in a database?
You get to choose how much to share and with whom. I don't think you'd have to worry about demands from distant relatives!
However, all of us should have wills and advance directives and health care powers of attorney. That way you know how your property will be handled after your death.
I had no idea... all new territory for me, so thank you for explaining, PA.
But, I'm curious if some people do this in order to find possible inheritances? I'm asking as I explained in a post long ago, that I was once contacted via snail mail by people claiming to be kin in Russia, saying they're distant cousins... they reported to have a similar name... enclosed was a list of designer jeans & sneakers with sizes for about 10 people they wanted mailed to them, as well as $300 for a car they needed. The note included the phrase 'rich American cousins'. It was not a request, it was a demand. Funny thing is... we're not Russian! I didn't reply, they never sent another letter... must have then switched to Nigeria & begun sending out emails to others.
That's just a scam, never heard of it occurring in genealogy research. Considering the autosomal DNA test costs $99 and the yDNA and mtDNA tests cost even more, I think it's highly unlikely someone would spend the money to have the tests done just to scam people. The idea of a scam is to fish for people who will believe a false story, not pay money to have a legit test done and find legit cousins!
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So, if blood tests put my info into a database, would it open up my immediate family to potential lawsuits when one of us dies & leaves our $ & homes to known relatives... only to have someone with a blood test from the Continent contact a lawyer & want a piece of their history?
I'm not giving you a hard time... it's a sincere q... do we unnecessarily open up our lives to strangers/swindlers by having our DNA info in a database?
I've never heard of it being a problem - for starters, your Will should be drawn up by a lawyer who would be able to word it properly to protect against this kind of thing. But also, I think someone that distantly related would not be able to claim inheritance equal to an immediate relative. You will find that there are thousands of people who you share a small amount of DNA from, they are likely to be 5th, 6th, 7th, etc cousins and therefore too distantly related to be considered for inheritance by law. We're talking about people who you share 7th great grandparents with from colonial times. There's no way they could claim inheritance. As for the matches which are more likely to be 3rd or 4th cousins, I still think it's highly unlikely they would be able to claim inheritance along side an immediate family member.
More importantly though, you can always keep your family tree private or not share your raw DNA data. The database will still find DNA matches but all it will tell you (on Ancestry.com, I can't speak for other companies) is that you share DNA with this or that person and that you're likely to be related roughly by (x) degrees -this is not enough to go to court with, the other people will not even know your real name unless your screen name is your real name or you choose to reveal it. So I'm not sure how these other people would even know that you've inherited anything for them to cash in on to begin with.
I realize that it's simple math and that with every generation the number of ancestors doubles. However, like I wrote before, some people had no children, or there were only one or two children in each generation. A few royal lines died out. So, you have to study each family tree individually and not just rely on math. I think that the number of living descendants - legitimate and proven illegitimate - from all European monarchs from 1700 to this day is 10-15k at best. And that Burke's Peerage and Almanach de Gotha have only thousands of living members and a lot of them are listed in both publications. When people go searching their family tree, do they go to such societies which keep thorough records?
If you add proven living descendants from the 17th down to 15th century monarchs- obviously excluding those who married descendants of later monarchs - you might come up with further, say, 40000 at best. I think in every European country there are so-called nobility societies, which keep a thorough record of all descendants, at least from the 17th century. How can a lot of people easily prove a connection to royalty 700 years back?
True... of course with branches dying off, once you go beyond a couple generations it becomes statistically very unlikely every branch will die off.
Tracing can also be hard in that in nobility (and royalty) the male line is much more concretely recorded and tracked. Even people who are 2-3 generations from a significant person of nobility/royalty, but down the female line, can be extremely hard to find concrete documents to track.
There are societies in the US for that as well, such as the Magna Carta society; however, I've seen pedigrees that have been accepted by some of those societies that are suspect too.
The reality is that for nearly everyone to track back that many generations it's very likely you will at least have a couple weak links that are hard to confirm. That doesn't count illegitimacy etc.
What I enjoy about it is more about how it connects us all to history and even looking at possible branches that connect to nobility and royalty can really make you think different about the history involved with those people.
I recently watched a program about the Richard III bones. One of the things they did to verify it was to find a descendant using mitochondrial DNA (an all female line), from one of Richard's mother's sisters. I was amazed that they were able to find at least one, in the 17th generation. An impressive feat, particularly considering how difficult women are to trace, in general.
If in the mid-19th century your ancestors were peasants or urban working class - and I think that is the farthest that most people can trace their ancestry - then there's a slim chance that you have even lower nobles in your tree before that. You are likely to trace your ancestry into the late 1700s if you had landowners, lawyers, professors, govt. officials, priests, and other highly literate people in your family in the 1800s. Even then, that's assuming all the journals survived and tales of family history were passed down from generation to generation. Also, a lot of people of all classes were displaced during the two world wars and a lot of records were lost.
If in the mid-19th century your ancestors were peasants or urban working class - and I think that is the farthest that most people can trace their ancestry - then there's a slim chance that you have even lower nobles in your tree before that. You are likely to trace your ancestry into the late 1700s if you had landowners, lawyers, professors, govt. officials, priests, and other highly literate people in your family in the 1800s. Even then, that's assuming all the journals survived and tales of family history were passed down from generation to generation. Also, a lot of people of all classes were displaced during the two world wars and a lot of records were lost.
Let's see. So first you say
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I'm not a genealogist but I estimate that number based on the family trees I've looked at.
and yet now you seem to be trying to tell genealogists, what kind of records exist, and what can be done with them, because you've looked at some family trees?
What you're claiming is nonsense. Actually, whether you can successfully trace your lineage earlier than the 1800s has more to do with where they lived than their station in life. Different municipalities kept different kinds of records.
Oh, and those "journals" and "tales of family history" you speak of ... they're not real records.
If in the mid-19th century your ancestors were peasants or urban working class - and I think that is the farthest that most people can trace their ancestry - then there's a slim chance that you have even lower nobles in your tree before that. You are likely to trace your ancestry into the late 1700s if you had landowners, lawyers, professors, govt. officials, priests, and other highly literate people in your family in the 1800s. Even then, that's assuming all the journals survived and tales of family history were passed down from generation to generation. Also, a lot of people of all classes were displaced during the two world wars and a lot of records were lost.
Tracing pesantry depends entirely on when and where. My grandfather's line goes back to 1400, but they lived in an area which became London and the parish recors were added to the massive stores of them kept in London. If its a place where tax records were not kept, or not by name then it would be harder.
Let's see. So first you say
and yet now you seem to be trying to tell genealogists, what kind of records exist, and what can be done with them, because you've looked at some family trees?
What you're claiming is nonsense. Actually, whether you can successfully trace your lineage earlier than the 1800s has more to do with where they lived than their station in life. Different municipalities kept different kinds of records.
Oh, and those "journals" and "tales of family history" you speak of ... they're not real records.
I'm not trying to tell genealogists anything and I concede that my analysis might be faulty. Yes, in regions of Europe isolated from wars, revolts, famines, and plagues, and where records were kept for centuries, it is possible to trace one's ancestry a few centuries. However, that doesn't apply to most of Europe where a lot of records were lost in countless wars and revolutions.
Still, even if you were to trace your ancestors to the 1500s, it is unlikely that you'll find royalty if your close ancestors in the 19th century were peasants or factory workers. I only looked at trees of royalty and also looked at the number of people in line to the British throne and the number of royal descendants in other countries. At best they number at about low-to-mid five figures.
Journals and tales of family history aren't obviously records. However, they can be a starting point. I know a lot of people who don't even know the names of their ancestors born in 1850.
I'm not trying to tell genealogists anything and I concede that my analysis might be faulty. Yes, in regions of Europe isolated from wars, revolts, famines, and plagues, and where records were kept for centuries, it is possible to trace one's ancestry a few centuries. However, that doesn't apply to most of Europe where a lot of records were lost in countless wars and revolutions.
Still, even if you were to trace your ancestors to the 1500s, it is unlikely that you'll find royalty if your close ancestors in the 19th century were peasants or factory workers. I only looked at trees of royalty and also looked at the number of people in line to the British throne and the number of royal descendants in other countries. At best they number at about low-to-mid five figures.
Journals and tales of family history aren't obviously records. However, they can be a starting point. I know a lot of people who don't even know the names of their ancestors born in 1850.
Your problem is that you are probably underestimating the number of descendants of royal families. There will be many relatives who are not in line to inherit the throne.
Next, many of us in the US who have nineteenth century ancestors who were farmers or laborers can trace some of our ancestral lines back into the 1500s and earlier. I'll admit that in my personal tree I have not confirmed the information personally, but the references from which I have obtained the information do appear to be well documented.
Unless an ancestor has deliberately tried to hide his identity or abandoned his family, just about anyone in the US should be able to find someone born in 1850. In my own tree, my most recent brick walls were born in 1804 (two of them) and 1821 (one). In my husband's tree, a maternal great grandmother is elusive, but I think that was deliberate on her part, since she is apparently a bigamist. I know who her parents are, but I cannot find when and where she died.
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I didn't reply, they never sent another letter... must have then switched to Nigeria & begun sending out emails to others.
I know who her parents are, but I cannot find when and where she died.
