Tracing Family roots

[gilmore]

I have one line of mine back to 515 in the Holy Land.Have Queen Mary of Scots in my line and tons of royals got lucky because tapped into royal records and they keep close tabs on bloodlines.Lol now if 143 (think thats the right #)people would die Id be queen lol .Can you see me as Queen?

Virtually everyone of European descent is descended from royalty. We have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 greatgrandparents, etc. Continuing this, if we go to, say 1215, the time of the signing of the Magna Carta, we have billions of ancestors of that generation, more than there were people on earth, let alone Europe and especially the British Isles. If we continue to Charlemagne, 800 AD, the number is in the trillions. So, every European who lived then who has living descendants is the ancestor of each of us. As the say, we are also descended from Charlemagne's stableboy, but he being poor, left no records, which are the documents of the transfer of wealth, by marriage, descent, enfeoffment, etc.

If you do enough genealogical research, you will invariably find that you have ancestors among the gentry. These descend from the aristocracy, who in turn descend from royalty. This is especially true in the British Isles, a more closed gene pool.

I don't know how many royal descents I have, but they include in England, Edward III, Edward I and John; too many Welsh kings and princes to list including Llewellyn the Great, the last prince of Wales, too many Scots kings to list, Charlemagne, St Louis of France, etc. I do not take pride in this, and am not at all special or unique. These historical figures have millions of descendants. For those of us who do genealogical research, royal and aristocratic ancestry is helpful since it has usually already been throroughly researched, we don't have to worry about it, and can spend our time on a much more exciting area: original research that no one has yet explored, a much greater source of pride to me than my ancestry.