GEN-MEDIEVAL-L Archives

Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2011-05 > 1304725635


From: Brad Verity <>
Subject: Re: Prince William - inbreeding and all kinds of things
Date: Fri, 6 May 2011 16:47:15 -0700 (PDT)
References: <mailman.5.1304688048.4855.gen-medieval@rootsweb.com><af64a671-1c2f-4815-967c-92c3aa59fc3e@z7g2000prh.googlegroups.com><3dff14b3-3ec5-4398-a16d-57818df295d9@h36g2000pro.googlegroups.com>


On May 6, 1:42 pm, John <> wrote:

> Kate's ancestry is largely complete (albeit with some guesses) through
> the 6th generation, in which 3 unknowns appear (the first unknown in
> William's ancestry appears in the 7th generation).  After the 6th
> generation, Kate's ancetsry begins to peter out very quickly:
> 7th:  42 of 128 possible ancestors
> 8th:  33 of 256
> 9th:  32 of 512
> 10th:  26 of 1024
> 11th:  18 of 2048
> 12th:  17 of 4096
> 13th:  6 of 8192
> 14th:  3 of 16384
> 15th:  2 of 32768

Wow, thank you, John, for sharing these statistics. I didn't realize
how little has been discovered so far of Kate's ancestry.

> After this point, interestingly, the numbers of known ancestors start
> to increase, because the couple in the 15th generation are her most
> recent aristocratic or gentry ancestors:  Sir Thomas Fairfax and Agnes
> Gascoigne, for whom much ancestry is available.

Just a small point. The first name of Sir Thomas Fairfax's Gascoigne
wife was 'Anne', not 'Agnes'. I think it was Derek Howard who
demonstrated in earlier posts on the topic how all of the 15th/16th
century documentation that survives calls her 'Anne'. Somehow it got
muddled to 'Agnes' in later pedigrees.

> Another interesting point is that inbreeding, as indicated by repeated
> ancestors, first shows up in Kate's ancestry at the 6th generation -
> exactly the same degree at which the same phenomenon occurs in
> William's ancestry.

Very interesting. Just goes to show how "democratic" inbreeding truly
is!

Thanks & Cheers, ----Brad


This thread: