Some Thoughts on Genealogical Research

Numbers were the springboard for some challenging analysis.

“Buck” Wiseman, a lawyer, in Louisville, Kentucky raised the 
question, “how could one couple resident in Essex, some years ago 
have become ancestors to so many”?

I pondered his important question until it dawned on me that 
population growth was exponential,    i.e. 2x2x2..........for 
whatever number of generations. This presumed that each 
generation produced at least 2 offspring. Within only 20 
generations this little Essex couple could become ancestors to over 
1 million people.

I questioned my logic and my arithmetic since, within a few 
additional  generations, the numbers grew so as to exceed the total 
British population, dead and living.

Subsequently, I discovered the writings of Bryan Pears who, by the 
same logic, postulated that within additional generations the 
numbers became astronomical. If fact the numbers became large 
enough to include every human ever born. The implication was 
that:

                        We are ALL related!


This might  explain why I  can trace ties to virtually every Scottish 
clan. It also implies links to the ancient Egyptians, to the Chinese, 
to the pygmy tribes of Africa...........to all human beings, living or 
dead.

Why then do genealogical research if we are all related. I think it 
provides us the chance to determine our most immediate cultural 
identity (ies).
I think I’ll close here since my wife, Eve, has just baked a 
delicious apple pie and I don’t want that damn snake to get it.  

John Kaven Wyseman-McKay  BA BSC MSW CBM