Families of Families – check out We Are […]
Thanks to centuries of sexism in which a married couple take the husband’s surname, when we go back a generation from ourselves we usually add one surname to the list from from which we are directly descended. Go back to our grandparents two further surnames… and for the mathematicians amongst you the formula is:
Where g is generation, you are g equals zero, n is the number of generations back. So going back five generations will generate a maximum of 95 names you can consider a close kinship with. As Bill Bryson noted in ‘A Brief History of Nearly Everything’: Go back to the time of Shakespeare and the Mayflower Pilgrims, and you have no fewer than 16,384 ancestors earnestly exchanging genetic material (if not surnames) in a way that would eventually result in you. Five generations before that no fewer than 33,554,432 devoted couplings upon which your existence depends… sixty four generations back to Roman times and 1,073,741,824 …parents of parents of parents leading to you have been hard at it.
The Poole Family of Families
Below are family names connected to Iliffe Poole (1897-1985) and her brother Humphrey Poole (1904-1978). If your surname is in the red list then you are DIRECTLY descended from all these families to the right of Iliffe and Humphrey (and others yet to be unearthed). These two were the only Pooles of their family to have children. Dates at the top of the columns show the approximate years each generation spanned.
The Davies Family of Families
Below are family names connected through siblings Morley, Hartley and Moll Davies. If your surname is in the red list then you are DIRECTLY descended from all these families to the right of the trio (and others yet to be unearthed). Dates at the top of the columns show the approximate years each generation spanned.
