Keeping the US Presidency "In the Family"?

[toddwv]

So apparently, this young girl has determined that all the US Presidents but one, that one being Martin Van Buren, are related to King John Platagenet whose reign in England started in 1199. According to the vid, this interesting fact was overlooked by genealogists because they tend to follow the paternal lineage whereas she included both paternal and maternal which would, no doubt, branch those family tree roots out exponentially.

Interesting note: Martin Van Buren, the 8th President, was America's first true "natural born citizen" even though English was his second language, was the first President not of English lineage and was the first President from New York. He also ran as a 3rd party candidate running on the "Free Soil Party" ticket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta6PxbEH_3A

Can't wait to hear the conspiracy theorists run with this.

[madinmaryland]

1. I thought everyone was related in some way to Kevin Bacon.

:shrug:

[Matariki]

2. While doing genealogy on my mother's side I found I was descended from Charlemagne

I was kind of excited about that until I found out that that is almost a Genealogical joke - EVERYONE with any European ancestry arrives at Charlemagne. I expect that's probably true of "King John Platagenet" and many others as well. So the question would be - is it *just* US Presidents with that "family" connection - or is it equally most of the US population?

http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/03/you-are-probably-descended-from-charlemagne-and-other-royalty.html

[Johnyawl]

3. Certainly that portion of the US population...

...with some roots in the British Isles.

[Matariki]

5. My point being that there isn't really anything remarkable, or conspiratorial, going on.

[lumpy]

4. After dabblinging in geneology I came to the conclusion that

I was related to everyone else of European descent and if I had delved into it longer I would have been related to the whole damned human race.

[SidDithers]

9. Well. We're all descended from Adam and Eve, right?...

:hide:

Sid

[postulater]

6. I track my lines back to Adam and Eve. Doesn't everyone?

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. No conspiracy theories needed

John was born in 1166. There are 30 generations between King John and someone born in the latter half of the 20th century, and say 20 generations between King John and George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc. The number of one's ancestors doubles with every generation; at 20 generations one has 1,048,576 ancestors (which is over half the population of England in the 12th century); at 30 generations, one has over one BILLION direct ancestors (because the number doubles with every generation), which is more than the total number of people alive at the time. We're talking about a population that's as far as is known of exclusively European and predominantly British Isles ancestry. The odds of someone of English ancestry not being a descendant of William the Conqueror are quite slim. It's simple mathematics and probability. Once you reach a certain point, you have a phenomenon known as "pedigree collapse", where you descend through multiple lines from the same people. You can see the same thing repeated in any population group that shares a common ancestral geographic origin.

(I'm a descendant of King John, 30 generations back; I'm also related to five US presidents, and to Queen Elizabeth II within fewer than the last 20 generations...and I'm not anyone special and certainly not part of some shadowy Illuminati-like ruling class.)

[Iggo]

8. '...certainly not part of some shadowy Illuminati-like ruling class...'

Oh, suuuure.

I got my eye on you.

B-)

[Geoff R. Casavant]

10. What's really mind-blowing is the concept of the Most Recent Common Ancestor

Read The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. It discusses how to find when the most recent common ancestor of any two given organisms lived. In an endnote, there is mention, if memory serves, that the MCRA of all people currently alive was a person who lived in Asia only 3000 years ago.