well, let me add a bit more... 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 greatgrand, 32, 64, --5 genrations..about 100 years.for 5 generation, 1000, 50- and 2 to the 50th? the total is more people than have ever lived! so go back an othe 500 to 1000 years... and we are at 2 to the 100! (and i think 20 years to a generation is reasonable.)It way to many people! so what is the answer?
one answer is cousins often in the past married cousins (even Darwin who knew better married a first cousin...) and not every one left decendants.. some lines have died out.. but still...
and as the slippered feet were going down to the servant quarters, the hob nailed boots where going up to m' ladies chambers.. and there was war, and crusades, and pilgramages, there were shipwrecks, abductions, rapes, and run aways, traveling sales men, and bride (especially royal brides) from far away countries... the gene pools did mix up!
it is a well documented fact that every US president can trace his liniage to english royal family.. (reagan went back to Edward 1st.) even daniel boone, a frontiers man (ie, one of the wild scotch irish) found himself with a bit of the royal family tree..
huge chunks of Appalichia go back to the Stewarts, (radcliffe is the family name, in many varients, ratcliff, redcleff, radceft,etc.,) all going back to Jenny Radcliffe, daughter to the last earl of Derwentwater, James (also the last man beheaded in the tower of London)--who had almost a dozen kids.. and 40 grandchildren when she died.. go to the library.. read the article!
