From roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Sat Jul 8 11:41:00 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k68Hf0jb002264; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:41:00 -0600 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l.rootsweb.com [66.43.16.22]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k68HevKc019252 for ; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:40:57 -0600 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l [127.0.0.1]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id k68F3XFI001449 for ; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:03:33 -0400 Received: (from roots-in@localhost) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.8/Submit) id k68F3X2f001448 for roots-approved@rootsweb.com; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:03:33 -0400 Received: from lists5.rootsweb.com (lists5.rootsweb.com [66.43.27.41]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id k68CtHFI001166 for ; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 08:55:17 -0400 Received: (from slist@localhost) by lists5.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) id k68FWUwm024304 for roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 09:32:30 -0600 X-Envelope-From: Kith-n-Kin@cox.net Sat Jul 8 09:32:30 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k68FWUjb024295 for ; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 09:32:30 -0600 Received: from fed1rmmtao09.cox.net (fed1rmmtao09.cox.net [68.230.241.30]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k68FWNfq017409 for ; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 09:32:24 -0600 Received: from TOWER ([68.0.155.47]) by fed1rmmtao09.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.06.01 201-2131-130-101-20060113) with ESMTP id <20060708153220.HQNS6303.fed1rmmtao09.cox.net@TOWER>; Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:32:20 -0400 From: "Kith-n-Kin" To: "'Michael Lynn Farrer'" , Subject: RE: [ROOTS-L] Shallow roots on a Family Tree Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 08:32:07 -0700 Message-ID: <002001c6a2a3$acaa9ff0$6601a8c0@TOWER> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.6626 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869 In-Reply-To: <20060708040338.25681.qmail@web81402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Importance: Normal X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by admin.rootsweb.com id k68FWUjb024295 Sender: roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Michael Without regard to the "real world" where there could easily be seven generations in a century, if a man born, say 1900, had a child at twenty, a grandchild at forty, a great-grandchild at sixty, a 2great-grandchild at sixty, a 3great-grandchild at eighty, and a 4great-grandchild at 100, or yr 2000. And, I do know, in fact, a 45 year old great grandmother, making a fifteen year generation span, if they keep that up. But, of course, we work with some kind of averages, to make up for the guy who waits till forty to have a child, his child waits till forty, etc. Here is one definition of generation, which is repeated in several places, this one from http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/generation: 4. A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or remove in genealogy. Hence: The body of those who are of the same genealogical rank or remove from an ancestor; the mass of beings living at one period; also, the average lifetime of man, or the ordinary period of time at which one rank follows another, or father is succeeded by child, usually assumed to be one third of a century; an age. So, I would say your calculations are perhaps closer to "average." There are fourteen generations between one of my husband's immigrant ancestors, John Rolfe, who was born ca 1600, and my grandson, born 2001. That's 28+ years per generation, which pretty well matches your calculations. I also have 33 generations between Siegfried the Dane (b ca 0935) and a descendant b 2001, giving us 32+ years. I don't know what Lois had in mind, but I suggest that since she had generations 10 and 14 pretty accurately (using the three generations per century), she just missed on generation 33, which should be between 0900 and 1000 AD. To get to "0" you will have 60 generations. By the way, I scratched this out on a piece of paper, but who here can't divide 2000 by 3 and come up with 66.66666..... Somewhere I must have lost my "3" math is not my forte! But, the point of the calculation to begin with, as I recall, had to do with how many direct ancestors you have in any given period of time, and the length of a generational procreation doesn't change the fact that there is a "law of diminishing returns" here, or the number of people living on the earth in pre-history would be greater than the number of people living now. I seem to have purged my e-mail of the original calculation, but it was derived from this article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060701/ap_on_sc/brotherhood_of_man Pat (in Tucson) |-----Original Message----- |From: roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com |[mailto:roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Michael Lynn Farrer |Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 21:04 |To: ROOTS-M@rootsweb.com |Subject: [ROOTS-L] Shallow roots on a Family Tree | | |I am questioning the accuracy of the chart that shows |generation 33 being born before Christ. I don't know the age |of the person at generation 1 but that won't make a big |difference. Let's say generation 1 is 6 years old now. This |person would be born in 2000. According to this chart the |person born 32 generations earlier would be born before the |year 0. 2,000 years divided by 32 generations is a 62 |average. I calculated 8 branches on my family tree and found |the age of a generation ranging from 25.8 years to 33.2 years |with the average being 28.13 years. If I divide 2000 years by |28.13 years I get 71 generations. If I multiply 32 gerations |by 28.13 years I get 900 years or back to 1100 AD. | |The length of generation would depending on wheather you are |calculation on a female dominated line or a male dominated |line. Men typically are older than women when they marry. Most |women are in menapause by age 48 and men can still father |children after that age. In modern times and in civilized |countries with childbirth typically taking place in hospitals |the average woman outlives her husband. However in my ancestry |research where women typically had their children at home it |was not uncommon for a husband to have at least 2 wives. There |is one man in my data base who outlived 3 wives. Typically |each wife was a little younger and his 4th wife outlived him. |He had children with all 4 wives. | |I calculated the age of the surname branch of my family tree, |which would be all males, and had an average generation age of |33.17 years. This would be about 3 generations per 100 years. |The mostly female branches of my family tree averaged closer |to 4 generation per 100 years. With this data my surname line |would go back 1066 years in 32 generations to the 900's. A |mostly female branch would go back 800 years in 32 generations |to about 1,200. | |I am not saying the chart is incorrect. Are the ages of my |generations shorter than normal? I would like feedback from |other genealogy researchers. | |Lynn Farrer | |