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Archiver > GENIRE > 1999-09 > 0937188983


From: Gitche Gumee <>
Subject: Re: IRISH GENEALOGIES OLDEST
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 19:16:23 +1700


In article <>, Barney
Tyrwhitt-Drake <> wrote:
>In article <IA%C3.601$>,
Louis Epstein
><> writes
>>
>>It's unlikely that you have no royal descents.
>
>If you've British ancestry this plainly isn't true. This
argument is
>usually made purely on mathematical grounds. Something
like, there were
>1.5 million people in Britain in 1066 while today there are
about 55
>million. There have been roughly 30 generations since
William I, so the
>odds are x:1 that you have ancestry from him.
>
>What this argument ignores is the fact that the royalty and
the nobility
>didn't marry at random. Particularly in the middle ages,
marriage was an
>economic tool that kept land and money in the hands of an
elite with
>only small but definite upwards and downwards migration.


People back than including the elite had a lot of children.
Not all the children could inherit the family fortune. The
title and most of the wealth went to the eldest son in the
family. The other children either had to make their own way
in the world or marry well. Not all the children of the
nobility managed to do that. It is not far fetch to say that
many of the descendants of the wealthy elite over
generations became common every day folks. So I think it is
more possible than you think that a person could be a
descendant of nobility but proving it would be difficult due
to poor record keeping. Common people back than didn't keep


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