Have you listed your tenth great grandparents.

Question

I recently made a list of all of my tenth great grandparents who seemed to be known.  Because my father's family had none, the most possible was 2 to the eleventh power , 2048.  I found 115.  They were born between 1509 and 1611.  I wonder if others have done this.

Answer 1

Yes, isn't it fun.

Answer 2

I like to keep a running total of the various generations:

I know the names of all 32 of my 3rd greats (but missing one maiden name)

I know 57 out of 64 4th greats, and then it really starts dropping off...

82 out of 128 5th greats; 91 out of 256 6th greats, started counting 10th greats and stumbled across somebody's bogus addition to the family tree and lost count, oops

Comments

When I can't sleep, I recite my ancestor list:

Father

Mother

Father's father

Father's mother

Mother's father

etc...

I have up to and including all of my 32 of my ggg grandparents memorized and I'm working on the gggg grandparents.

Next time you have insomnia, give it a try.  You'll be asleep inside of 10 mins...

Answer 3

I tried to count the number of my nth-gr-grandparents, but gave up because it was too difficult. I got up to 5th great-grandparents. Is there an easy way? 

 

32 3rd gr-grndprnts (missing one maiden name)

43 4th gr-grndprnts

52 5th gr-grndprnts

 

Your posting gave me the idea to use the WikiTree DNA tools to help count relatives. This is not exactly what you are doing, but WikiTree has some nice DNA tools. Here are my numbers:

 

auDNA 258 (recently related profiles)

yDNA  184 (paternal line related profiles)

mtDNA  46 (maternal line related profiles)

 

These numbers will change as the profiles in WikiTree change. I am not on the trusted list for all these profiles, so I won't know when these numbers change unless I calculate them again.

 

You don't need to do a DNA test to get these numbers, but it is a little complicated. I can explain if anyone is interested. (It would be nice if WikiTree could calculate these numbers automatically for everyone. It would encourage more people to get tested.)

Answer 4

Ooh, what fun!

I know (according to WikiTree profiles):

• all 32 of my 3x great grandparents.
• 47 of my 64 4x great grandparents (missing two maiden names).
• 38 of my 128 5x great grandparents (actually only 36 people due to pedigree collapse) (missing two maiden names).
• 27 of my 256 6x great grandparents (actually only 23 people due to pedigree collapse).
• 25 of my 512 7x great grandparents (actually only 21 people due to pedigree collapse).
• 42 of my 1024 8x great grandparents (actually only 38 people due to pedigree collapse).
• 78 of my 2048 9x great grandparents (actually only 70 people due to pedigree collapse).
• 99 of my 4096 10x great grandparents (actually fewer people due to lots of pedigree collapse at this point).

I have some lines going further, too. Granted, some of these lines have been added to WikiTree by people other than me, and I haven't confirmed all of them yet, so there could be errors in there.

Comments

How did you do it please?

paper and pencil?

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I did it using the tree view. Eg. to see how many of the 4x great grandparents I know, I opened a tab for each of my grandparents' tree views. That way the far right of all the tree views showed up 4x great grandparents. From there I just stepped back through the tree for each generation. Sometimes that involved opening a lot of tabs, but it was manageable because a lot of my lines don't go back that far.

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Wow... y'all are amazing. On my line, the highest generation I have is 15th generation -- but only two of them Fyshe and Mayhew (pre-colonial English lines). I have only 14 in my 10th generation.

But as you know I'm pretty picky about documentation... ;-) (can that be my excuse?)

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It would be nice if wikitree calculated and listed this for everyone. It does it up to generation 7, so why not 10? Great great great great grandparents of ...ie #127.  I am missing 4 of those.

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Someone needs to make an app...

Answer 5

1 me

2 parents

4 grandparents

8 great-grandparents

16 gg-grandparents

32 3x great-grandparents

38 4x great-grandparents

42 5x great-grandparents

33 6x great-grandparents

15 7x great-grandparents

19 8x great-grandparents

22 9x great-grandparents

21 10x great-grandparents

24 11x great-grandparents

14 12x great-grandparents

10 13x great-grandparents

5   14x great-grandparents

When I first came to Wikitree, to my surprise I found 4 lines that go back 20 or more generations.  I spent my first month here debunking those fanciful claims.  A few lines (some of the 12-14x) purportedly go back farther but I've not seen any sourcing so they are on the "to do list."

When I started back in 1997, I had only the grandparents, 4 greats, 2 great-great grandparents.

I hope to find a few more in the next 21 years ;-)

Answer 6

Gosh, this is embarrassing.  The farthest back I have gone is great-great grandparents and I only know names of 2 of them.

My excuse is that when I joined WikiTree 3 1/2 years ago, I only knew names of 2 of my grandparents and 1 great grandparent, so I have made at least some progress - I now know all 4 grandparents and 6 of 8 great-grandparents.