I have a
cousin that is quite proud of her membership with the DAR (Daughters of the
American Revolution.) She traced her lineage
back through an obscure family name that is unfamiliar to this generation of our family.
A single
generation of a family is considered to be twenty years or five generations in
a century. From the American Revolution in 1776 to 1876
to 1976 to 2022 would calculate as twelve generations.
One
generation back you have two parents. Two generations back you have four
grandparents. Three generations back you have eight great grandparents – 16-32-64-128…
The numbers double with each preceding
generation
Twelve
generations back you have 4096 hereditary grandparents; 2048 heredity grandmothers
and 2048 heredity grandfathers.
As a DAR
member, your claim to fame is that twelve generations back one of your 2048
hereditary grandmothers was present in America in 1776.
Most black and white Americans with more than three generations in this country can probably trace their lineage back to 1776.
We are all sons
and daughters of the American Revolution.
From the ridiculous
to the absurd, people claiming a hereditary line to the Mayflower counting back twenty generations are picking one from a line of one million 1,000,000) heredity
grandparents.
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| WE ALL TRACE BACK TO A COMMON ANCESTRY WE ARE THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF AFRICAN EVE |
the Ol’Buzzard
Our equivalent to the DAR is the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada. To join, one must be able to trace your family history back to an official United Empire Loyalist -- i.e. an American refugee who fled the American Revolution after Britain lost, came to Canada and was granted land by the British Crown for their loyalty to Britain (usually demonstrated by having fought for or cooperated with the British forces in the 13 colonies during the Revolution.) I can trace my lineage back to the requisite ancestor and join if I wanted. Membership would allow me to put the initials "U.E.L." behind my name. As if anyone these days knows or cares anymore what that means, LOL! I can't be bothered to join, obviously -- feh!
ReplyDeleteGiven that most people lived in fairly small communities, I'm thinking when you get back a few generations the trees aren't branching much. Lots of 2nd and 3rd cousins marrying each other simply because the dating pool would be limited, which in turn suggests a smaller number of great-great-great-grandmothers. I recall an article a few years ago that said based on DNA analysis at one point the human race was down to just a few thousand individuals, maybe about 100,000 years ago?
ReplyDeleteI have never understood why anyone would be interested in genealogy. I can see why adoptees would do the 23andme thing in hopes of finding relatives so they can maybe learn what illnesses might be common within their lineage, but genealogy to be able to brag about what an obscure ancestor did 200 years ago? What's the point?
Nan has it right. Family trees constantly double back on themselves. I would like to do an mDNA and Y DNA to learn about my very ancient ancestors. My daughter did a general DNA analysis and I knew enough of our family background to explain most of it. There is a Hingston One-Name Study (https://cjb.emma.cam.ac.uk/hingston/) with several thousand names on it divided into several branches depending on origin. As more credible information comes available the branches may be linked. It is quite the jigsaw puzzle. Any notes provided about the person are included with their name so there is a lot of history there as well.
ReplyDeleteI did the dna thing and found out so many interesting things..only race I don't have in me is Asian.
ReplyDelete