“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings”
Previous FAQ: Ancestors vs Descendants, or Bottom-up vs Top-Down
Let me just state the issue flat out. I have performed my geneological research using a wide variety of web sites (ancestry.com, geni.com, wikipedea.org, et.al.). All such sources of information must be give a proverbial “grain of salt”. According to my most honest interpretation of the data within those sites, my pure-paternal line can be traced backwards 109 generations to Dardanus of Dardania making him Sarah and Emily’s 107-great grandfather, coded as “M109“. Dardanus is a former King, and is the half-brother of Helen of Troy.
But herein lies the problem. Wikipedea and Geni list Dardanus’ father as “Zeus”. Clearly a figure on the “myth” side of Tolkien’s quote. Another site (and the one I used when building my tree) lists Dardanus’ father as “Zerah ibn Judah”. That particular name is listed in other references as the son of Judah, who is the son of Jacob, who is the son of Issac, who is the son of Abraham. That would make King Abraham of Biblical Goshen Sarah and Emily’s 112th-great-grandfather (“M114“) by direct paternal bloodline. Whether or not the line between Dardanus and Abraham is deemed “history” or “myth” depends entirely upon one’s point of view.
There are several approaches one can take to this problem. One can be hyper-scientific, and discount data deemed “unprovable”. The 1880 US-Federal Census is probably fairly accurate when compared to a Homeric poem. For me, I decided to take this effort a little less seriously at the fringes. For the bulk of the tree, I am applying severe honesty. When History becomes Legend, I attempted to make the bloodlines reasonable and consistent on their own merits. Two or more bloodlines must be reasonable and consistent with one-another.
Several things can be done to improve the “accuracy” of the findings:
- Use ancestry.com. As I understand it, ancestry.com is a website started and supported by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – ie the Mormans. Whether or not one is Morman or religious-at-all is not the issue. The Mormans use genealogical findings to ensure that all of their ancestors have been baptized (in absentia). Therefore, Mormans believe they are literally risking the souls of their ancestors when errors exist in the data. At the same time, such a religious-based assurance does *not* exist for trees constructed by amateur users such as myself.
- Compare dates with length of bloodline (using a reasonable number of generations per century). Dardanus’ birth year is estimated by geni.com as 1519 BC, which was around 3500 years ago. 3500 years implies time for around 116 generations. Since Dardanus is coded as “M109”, the bloodline can be considered as fairly reasonable for it’s length.
- The prior point becomes much more “solid” when the family tree begins to intertwine. Multiple paths to a common ancestor must be of reasonably similar lengths.
- Seems silly to state it, but parents need to be alive, and of a reasonable child-bearing age. Many ancestry.com “hints” tend to ignore this simple fact.
- Similarly, marriages can not occur unless both the bride and groom are alive at the same time.
Beyond that, relax and enjoy.
Next FAQ: Michael ap Arnold, Prince of Wales
Sang Roial 