Thought y'all would find this interesting. It is from another list. Sara In response to a question about how many ancestors one could possibly have, Myra Vanderpool Gormley replied: "This is a subject that has fascinated people for centuries. Each generation back the number of your ancestors doubles: 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, and so forth. In the 10th generation back you would have 1,024 ancestors in that generation, and a total of 2, 046 ancestors. If you figure 30 years to the average generation, then 10 generations represents 300 years. Forty generations would take you back to about A.D. 800 - the time of Charlemagne; 80 generations back to the time of Socrates, when, according to Eugene A. Stratton in his book "Applied Genealogy" published by Ancestry, Inc. in 1988, each of us would have more than ONE SEPTILLION ancestral lines. Obviously, there were never that many people on this earth, so what happened? The answer is in what is called a collapsing pedigree - THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS. So, although one may have 1,024 lines in the 10th generation, the different people this number represents will likely be somewhat to a great deal smaller as you discover the marriages of cousins, which will give you duplicate ancestors in many of your lines. Fascinating, isn't it?"