Related to Yourself? - Michael John Neill I get the funniest looks when I tell people I'm related to myself. In my case, it's a simple matter of math, geography, and settlement patterns. The numbers are pretty easy to see. There is 1 of you--unless you've got an identical twin Two biological parents Four biological grandparents Eight biological great-grandparents The number keeps doubling each generation. Counting yourself as generation one, by the time you have reached generation twenty, the seventeenth great-grandparent generation has been reached. There are 524,288 theoretical blank spots in this generation of your pedigree chart. Depending upon how "mixed" your ancestry is, there's a reasonable chance of repetition. Extend the lineage back ten more generations and the number is a staggering 536,870,912 ancestors! Now there's a database (documenting it is another story). Thirty generations ago, the population was significantly less than half a billion. If you could trace each line that far (and chances are you can't), there would be names repeated. It didn't take me getting over half a billion ancestors to notice some repeated names in my own background. Five of my great-great-grandparents come from two very small adjacent German villages. As I traced some of these lines, I felt I was repeating some names over and over again. I was fortunate enough to trace the ancestry of these ancestors from their approximate births in 1850 until the mid-1500s. Three hundred years of ancestors in two nearby adjacent small villages and I was bound to run into repeat ancestors. There simply were not enough people to go around. Both sets of my maternal great-grandparents were distantly related. 1) Johan Hinrichs Borjes (d. 1769) 2) Lisabeth Jansen Seehusen 3) Sarke Tjarks Fecht (b. 1761) 4) Tjark Gerjets Fecht (b. 1803) 5) Elska Fecht Janssen (b, 1829) 6) Jans Jurgens Janssen (b. 1856, immigrant) 7) Trientje Marie Janssen Ufkes (b. 1895, my great-grandmother) 1) Johan Hinrichs Borjes (d. 1769) 2) Nantje Jansen Ufkes (d. 1785) 3) Johann Ufkes (b. 1756) 4) Hinrich Ufkes (b. 1797) 5) Johann Ufkes ( b. 1838, immigrant) 6) Frederich Ufkes (b. 1893, my great-grandfather) Making Trientje and Frederich, my great-grandparents, 4th cousins, once removed. Chances are they never had any idea. Who but a genealogist has their ancestry traced that far back! My other set of maternal great-grandparents were also related: 1) Lubbe Habben 2) Habbe Lubben (b. 1680) 3) Pabe Habben (d. 1771) 4) Habbe Paben (b. 1750) 5) Lubbe Habben (b. 1775) 6) Mimke Habben (b. 1822, immigrant) 7) Jann Habben (b. 1859, immigrant) 8) Mimka Habben (b. 1881, my great-grandfather) 1) Lubbe Habben 2) Tutter Lubben Gronewold (b. 1672) 3) Johann Gronewold (d. 1746) 4) Johann Gronewold (b. 1745) 5) Johann Gronewold (b. 1772) 6) Altje Gronewold Tammen (b. 1799) 7) Tjode Tammen Goldenstein (b. 1824) 8) Foche Goldenstein (b. 1857, immigrant) 9) Tjode Goldenstein Habben (b. 1882, my great-grandmother) Chances are they never knew of the relationship either. I only descend from the Borjes and Habben families twice. Only twice. Some of these families were concentrated in the Holtrop area of Ostfriesland, Germany and there is a Willem Aden who died in Holtrop in 1669. I descend from Willem six times! One set of ancestors who married in the 1720s that were second cousins (their great-grandparents were siblings) and another set who married in 1797 that were first cousins once removed. Other intermarriages were distant enough that the relationships were likely unknown to the couple. I also descend six times from an Eme Lampen who died in Holtrop in 1666. Both sets of my maternal great-grandparents are related and my maternal grandparents are also related, but one has to trace back to 1700 to find their common ancestor. When one keeps in mind the small geographic area these individuals came from the number of "repeat" ancestors is not surprising. When records allow tracing ancestors for two or three hundred years in a village of two or three hundred people, the chance of intermarriage is great. If individuals from a small village migrate to the United States together (as some individuals from this area did) the geographic closeness may be replicated (at least for the first few generations). In my own maternal ancestry, there are many names that are repeated twice. Six descents from one person is my personal high, though. However, I was to find multiple descents in my paternal ancestry as well. This time it was a family that traveled from Virginia, to Kentucky, to Indiana. 1) John Tinsley (d. 1817 Amherst Co. Virginia) 2) James Tinsley 3) Enoch Tinsley 4) Rebecca Tinsley Newman (m. 1839 Rush County, Indiana) 1) John Tinsley (d. 1817 Amherst Co. Virginia) 2) Sally/Sarah Tinsley Sledd 3) Melinda Sledd Newman 4) William Newman (m. 1839 Rush County, Indiana) Rebecca and William, my third-great-grandparents are second cousins. It was not unusual in some families and in some cultures to marry distant (and not so distant relatives). The reasons were varied and it was more common in some cultures than in others. Even if you are not related to yourself, it's possible that you are related to an individual in more than one way. There are many individuals who are "double first cousins" (where brothers married sisters, for example). The relationship may get even more complicated than that. My grandfather and a female relative were first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins. And no one married a blood relative. Here's a simplified version of how the relationships fit together. First cousins--His father and her mother were siblings. Hence the individuals in question were first cousins. Second cousins--His maternal grandfather and her paternal grandfather were siblings (in other words their grandparents were siblings). Hence the individuals in question were second cousins. Third cousins--His mother's mother's father and her father's mother's father (their great-grandparents) were siblings. Hence the individuals in question were third cousins. It's almost easier to explain it using the people's names. Of course unless you know the people that does not explain the relationships. On a five-generation pedigree chart for these two people, fourteen out of the sixteen names are the same--although they appear in different places in the last column due to the differing ways of descent. How did I track out all these relationships? It is much easier than it was in the old days. My first genealogical software package required me to enter each ancestor once for each line of descent. I could not "tie" the lines together so I had to enter some individuals multiple times. Fortunately, that is not a problem today. All software packages easily allow the entry of such lines and will calculate relationships, even multiple ones. Most programs allow the user to print "repeat" ancestors each time, or to only print them once. It shortens up some of my trees to print them once, but printing them each time makes it easier to see the relationships and intermarriages. Your software package may also allow you to determine the relationship between two individuals. Some of my families give that section a really good workout. In preparing the information for this article, I printed out the charts, showing each line separately. I then used colored pencil on the sheets to track the individual lines of descent. Chances are you won't descend from anyone six times, but if your families stayed in small or isolated areas for several generations and you can document the lineage, multiple descents are likely. Good luck! Keeping all the shirttail relations straight is difficult enough when they are related once, let alone twice! Copyright 1999, Michael John Neill. Michael John Neill, is the Course I Coordinator at the Genealogical Institute of Mid America (GIMA) held annually in Springfield, Illinois, and is also on the faculty of Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois. Michael is the Web columnist for the FGS FORUM and is on the editorial board of the Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly. He conducts seminars and lectures on a wide variety of genealogical and computer topics and contributes to several genealogical publications, including Ancestry and Genealogical Computing. You can e-mail him at: mneill@asc.csc.cc.il.us or visit his website at: http://www.rootdig.com/