Did you realize that since ancestors multiply, by the time you are looking for your 12 times great-grandparent (i.e. great-great-great-great-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-great-grandparents) who were likely born around 1600 (only 400 years ago) you are looking for up to 16,384 people in that generation!
Let's start out a little closer...
We all have 4 grandparents. That gives us 8 great-grandparents. Continuing on this vein, my 5 times great-grandparents were born around 1800. There were 128 of them! That means that within the last 200 years or so, there were 254 people who helped create me (add up each generation and include your parents to get this number)!
(Of course this is all assuming that there are no repeats, which of course is highly unlikely... brothers did tend to marry sisters when they didn't move around like our society does now.)
Do you realize that this means that you only have to go back 500-600 years before your ancestors number over 1 million! Whew... no wonder I feel like doing genealogy is sometimes looking for needles in haystacks!
I know that while I have a fairly extensive family tree, I have no where near 1 million direct ancestors that I know names of. What a new goal for the future!
Wow. That is very interesting, but not very encouraging... we are very one of a kind though.
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