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Living descendants of Mark Antony

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Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#101

Post by saalweachter »

NeoTar wrote: post #43
rongopo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it follow that same would apply for all humans of Mark Antony's time?

Kinda! This is covered in Randall Munroe's (of XKCD fame) latest book - What If 2; chapter 33 "Ancestor Fraction" Obviously a human who did not have any children cannot be the ancestor of anyone - this includes the circa 50% of humans who died during infancy, and the 25% of adult humans who did not have children. Also, for some people who had children the line will die-out; if you have four children all of whom die i…

Is that "are" or "will be" an ancestor to all humans?

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#102

Post by Sunspark »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #79
williamcotton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother’s parents were from a small island community in Norway. They were second cousins. One time I got drunk and made out with my second cousin who still lives on that same island. My friends and family who witnessed the course of events were merely amused and not at all disgusted. Inbreeding ain’t going nowhere in coastal Norway! My (not at all previously related) wife thinks I’m insane that I love telling this…

2nd cousin relationships are common in most parts of the world, and not viewed with the circumspection that 1st cousin relationships tend to be. You are much more genetically distant from a 2nd cousin than you are from a 1st.

I would say that the distance depends too on where someone is from. If they come from an endogamous community then they are related to other people in their tree through more than just a single branch. Islands, villages, etc. Sometimes it is fine, other times it can be a problem.

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#103

Post by TylerE »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #15
jl6 wrote: post #14

If the average age of giving birth is 25, Mark Antony would be about 80 generations ago. With each generation back doubling the number of ancestors (2 parents, 4 grandparents, …), this person has a theoretical 2^80 ancestors - somewhat more than the number of people that have ever lived. So clearly that logic is flawed, and the family tree must in fact be a family web - but potentially a very, very wide one. I wouldn…

This is the correct answer. The entire population of Europe is about as descended from Mark Antony as that Georgian noble house. Only the Y-chromosome is lineally passed across such long time spans

The real give away is in the bio: Prince Theodore D. Kopaliani is a member of the Bagrationi Royal House.

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#104

Post by shaftoe »

goethes_kind wrote: post #77
tokai wrote: post #28

Unrelated to the genealogy; but at what point does it become ridiculous to claim yourself a prince? With over a century of no power for the family and no obvious way back to it as the kingdom is well dissolved, it feels like dress-up to style yourself a prince.

He is still part of the special club that we are not invited to. Among people with current or former titles, titles still matter.

Is this like people who wear $500 jeans? Only they can tell the difference.

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#105

Post by Sunspark »

googlryas wrote: post #88
tinco wrote: post #11

Plot twist at the end there, as the author of the article is themselves a prince of the family of living descendants of Mark Anthony. Although he's pretty humble about it before breaking the news it did make me double take. To me the amazing thing is that they managed to hold on to both power and money for so long. It took 1800 years for them to lose power, and 200 years later they're still sending their princes to P…

Is he though? I would imagine in all those intervening years, at some point the male heir got cuckolded by his wife.

There are other things that can happen as well, rape is a known thing, and of course, adoption as well. Romans definitely did adopt others and give them their family name. On a tree, none of this shows.

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#106

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

pjlegato wrote: post #89
jl6 wrote: post #14

If the average age of giving birth is 25, Mark Antony would be about 80 generations ago. With each generation back doubling the number of ancestors (2 parents, 4 grandparents, …), this person has a theoretical 2^80 ancestors - somewhat more than the number of people that have ever lived. So clearly that logic is flawed, and the family tree must in fact be a family web - but potentially a very, very wide one. I wouldn…

All real family trees are not tree-shaped but diamond-shaped due to inbreeding (often very distant), a phenomenon geneaologists call "pedigree collapse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse

If it's "very distant" is it really inbreeding?

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#107

Post by WalterBright »

goethes_kind wrote: post #81
WalterBright wrote: post #18

Such paper lineages assume that none of the fathers were cuckolded. DNA is the only way to be sure.

That was much harder to do, in the past, and people back then weren't as foolish and trusting as today. They literally went to great lengths to make sure it didn't happen. And especially royal lineages. At the same time, testing was also not possible back then.

> That was much harder to do, in the past

Is there any evidence for that? In one of David Attenborough's documentaries, he talks about that. Research showed that people are quick to point out that a baby looks like the father, even when the father isn't the biological father. The inference is that cuckolding is a common occurrence.

You're right that people would go to great lengths to ensure fidelity of the women, even executing them for infidelity. They wouldn't have bothered if cuckolding wasn't common. The recent movie "The Last Duel" was historically accurate in that it was a duel to the death over whether a knight's friend had sex with his wife or not.

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#108

Post by WalterBright »

Bayart wrote: post #24
WalterBright wrote: post #18

Such paper lineages assume that none of the fathers were cuckolded. DNA is the only way to be sure.

« Non-paternity events » occur at a rate of a few percents a given generation at best, but it's enough that at this scale even a rock-solid documents trail isn't proof of descent.

> « Non-paternity events » occur at a rate of a few percents a given generation at best

I thought that widespread genetic testing has shown it to be much higher than that.

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#109

Post by irrational »

bin_bash wrote: post #96
irrational wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read up on family trees. This is an extremely well known thing and you can find a lot of articles that answer this question.

This comment is begging for a link—or at least a description of this "extremely well known thing"

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/01/your-family-past-present-and-...

https://nautil.us/youre-descended-from-royalty-and-so-is-eve...

https://sci-hub.st/10.1038/nature02842

Re: Living descendants of Mark Antony

#110

Post by lofatdairy »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #106
pjlegato wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All real family trees are not tree-shaped but diamond-shaped due to inbreeding (often very distant), a phenomenon geneaologists call "pedigree collapse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse

If it's "very distant" is it really inbreeding?

It's inbreeding by the technical definition/understanding but obviously it's not inbreeding from a practical/biologically concerning standpoint.
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