whitepeak

How big is your family tree ? 

Everyone on the earth has two parents, a mum and a dad, I understand that they may have passed away, but none the less at some point, two people came together to create YOU.  I got to thinking about this  -

I have Two Parents, and Four Grandparents, and Eight Great-Grandparents, but what would happen if you plotted this in history -  The numbers on the Left Start with YOU (thats the Number 1) - then your Parents are the (1st Generation), Your Grand-Parents are the (2nd Generation) and your Great-Grandparents are the (3rd Generation) etc etc... to Help you get some Idea of the place in History, I have listed the British Ruling Kings and Queens - 

1   This Generation (1970) (Elizabeth II)

2   (1st) Parents (1940) (George VI)

4   (2nd Generation) Grand Parents (1910) (Edward VII)

8   (3rd) - Gt, Gt, Gr Parents (1880) (Victoria)

16 (4th) (1850) (Victoria)

32 (5th) (1820) (George IV)

64 (6th) (1790) (George III)

128 (7th) (1760) (George III)

256 (8th) (1730) (George II)

512 (9th) (1700) (William III Mary II)

1024 (10th) (1670) (Charles II)

2048 (11th) (1640) (Charles I)

4096 (12th) (1610) (James I)

8192 (13th) (1580) (Elisabeth I)

16,384 (14th) (1550) (Edward VI)

32,768 (15th) (1520) (Henry VIII)

65,536 (16th) (1490) (Henry VII)

131,072 (17th) (1460) (Edward IV)

262,144 (18th) (1430) (Henry VI)

524,288 (19th) (1400) (Richard II)

1,048, 576 (20th) (1370) (Edward III)

2,097,152 (21st) (1340) (Edward III)

4, 194, 304 (22nd) (1320) (Edward II)

8, 388, 608 (23rd)  (1290) (Edward I)

16, 777, 216 (24th) (1270) (Henry III)

33, 554, 432 (25th)  (1240) (Henry III)

67, 108, 864 (26th)  (1210) (67 Million Common Ancestors) (John Magna Carta)

134, 217, 728 (27th) (1180) (Henry II)

268, 435, 456 (28th) (1150) (Steven)

536, 870, 912 (29th) (1120) (Henry I)

1, 073, 741, 824 (30th) (1090) (William II)

2, 147, 483, 648 (31st)  (1060) (William I)

So if we Trace Your family right back to the Battle of Hastings, you would need 2,147, 483, 648 people, (2 Billion) - People  - Ok there wasn't Two Billion People in England in 1066 - But you can still claim them as your Legitimate - 
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- 
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- Grand Parents... 

Lets think about this ... with the potential of that many Distant Relatives, you are probably a distant relative to practically everyone who you meet today - SO BE NICE !

There is another side of this, the Queen is probably no doubt a distant relative of William the First - However there are 2.1 Billion other People who are also directly related to her also, and have exactly the same amount of Claim to be her distant relative. I wonder why we place so much emphasis on just a single blood line, when there are so many others. 

The same can be seen in the Bible - In the book of Matthew, the writer traces his way back in exactly the same way, tracing 28 Generations to (well Joseph - Jesus step dad actually) - thats potentially 268 Million People who Jesus Can also Trace his family Tree back to. WIth numbers like that in fact, it would be practically impossible to find someone who Jesus was NOT related to, especially in a small community all calling themselves Jews! -  I wonder if that is why he said at the last supper - This is my body - This is my blood - meaning the Jews around the table... of course they were... all literally distantly related by real blood and real flesh. 

Even allowing for a decent amount of Incest - the figure is still impressive -