How Many Are There?

I am always interested in numbers and what they can tell me.  To better facilitate my ability to numerically look at data in my family tree, I’ve been working on labels for the verified direct ancestors (where a verified direct ancestor pertains only to those ancestors with documented parent-child relationships).  Verifying and labeling are both tedious, but I think it has made it easier for me to potentially understand all of the interconnected relationships.   

I’ve mentioned before that there is quite a bit of pedigree collapse (generally it happens when a person marries a relative) in the Vadnais/Peltier family tree.  Before you wince, absorb this fact: according to Rutgers anthropology professor Robin Fox, 80% of all marriages in history have been between second cousins or closer. 

One side of a family tree, either paternal or maternal, should have a certain number of direct ancestors; i.e. grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc…  On my paternal side I do have the normal 2 grandparents, 4 great-grandparents, 8 great-great grandparents, 16 great-great-great-grandparents, 32 great-great-great-great-grandparents and 64 great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. 

The following table shows the actual and theoretical counts associated with verified direct ancestors in my family tree.

It is astounding that all of my paternal direct ancestors back through the 6^th great-grandparents are all known.  As I have mentioned before, this is because French-Canadians are one of the few groups of people in the world that were so well documented.  In contrast, my maternal direct ancestors, the Wallerick family, came to the United States from Germany and Sweden. In that tree I only know of a total of 10 maternal direct ancestors because of either poor record keeping, there being no record made, inability to find the record, and/or a record being lost.

I should also mention that the number of unknown direct paternal ancestors increases fairly quickly the further back you look in the tree.  For example, I only know of 4 unknown 7^th great-grandparents, but there are 38 unknown 8^th great-grandparents and the number of unknown direct ancestors increases from there.

Even if I ignore the unknown direct ancestors these diminished counts tell me that there are quite a few of these ancestors that had 2, 3, 4 or even 5 children that became my direct ancestors.  Put another way, instead of appearing just one time in my tree, many ancestors appear 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times in my tree resulting in “multiple” direct ancestor relationships.

Here’s an example of one of my “multiple” relationships:

Charles Hus Cournoyer and Marie Madeleine Duval are the parents of Charles and Antoine.  The son Charles becomes my 6^th great-grandfather and his brother Antoine becomes my 5^th great-grandfather and the lines descend from there.  When Rose Delima Peltier marries Jean Baptiste Derosier (they are 3^rd and 4^th cousins once removed) the branches merge.

Charles Hus Cournoyer and Marie Madeleine Duval are both my 6^th and 7^th great-grandparents; “multiple” direct ancestors. 

I know of 337 of these “multiple” direct ancestor relationships in the Vadnais/Peltier family tree with the table below showing the relationships and how many of each I’ve uncovered.  The highlighted line is associated with the example from above where 8 represents Charles and Marie Madeleine, as well as 6 other people, that are both my 6^th and 7^th great-grandparents.

To date I have verified well over 2,000 direct ancestors going back to my 39^th and 41^st great-grandparents who were Charles I, Charlemagne, King of the Franks & Emperor of the West and his wife Hildegard of Vinzgau.  Very, very few people have the ability to say that they can identify and verify as many direct ancestors in their family as are known in ours.

Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cindy

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