Tenth cousins is about as distant as you can get. For first cousins you have to go back two generations to find a common ancestor. For tenth cousins, you have to go back eleven generations. Two to the power of eleven is two thousand and forty-eight ancestors of that generation, or four thousand and ninety-four ancestors of all eleven generations. That blood gets very thin.
Of course, not all of these ancestors may be distinct, especially if you hail from Virginia, I'm told.
Apparently, I'm the second cousin three times removed of the wife of the Queen's first cousin five times removed. But thats not going to get me an invite to tea on the lawn of Buckingham Palace.
And I'm pretty sure that Barack, Sarah and Rush, despite this revelation, are not going to be sharing thanksgiving or catching up on the family gossip any time soon.
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Originally posted by KJCavalier*shrug* What can one say, politicians in the USA are obviously just as incestuous a lot as those everywhere else. You were surprised?
http://www.wtsp.com/news/watercooler/story.aspx?storyid=150804&catid=58
I don't know what else to say.
Richard
Originally posted by GatecrasherI think I was bordering more upon the fact that someone, even a website's programming, took the time to actually look this up and make it a newsworthy story.
Tenth cousins is about as distant as you can get. For first cousins you have to go back two generations to find a common ancestor. For tenth cousins, you have to go back eleven generations. Two to the power of eleven is two thousand and forty-eight ancestors of that generation, or four thousand and ninety-four ancestors of all eleven generations. That bl ...[text shortened]... are not going to be sharing thanksgiving or catching up on the family gossip any time soon.
Originally posted by KJCavalierGenealogy is a massively lucrative industry, and ancestry.com is the biggest player. Of course it is worth their while to look up and publicise stuff like this. They also produce the TV series "Who do you think you are?" where they trace the lineage of selected celebrities.
I think I was bordering more upon the fact that someone, even a website's programming, took the time to actually look this up and make it a newsworthy story.
My comment was more on the fact that 10th cousin is barely a relative at all, considering that we all have tens-maybe-hundreds of thousands of them.