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Date:         Thu, 7 Jan 1993 18:29:00 +1600
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Comments: To: roots-l@vm1.nodak.edu

In article <5035@crl.LABS.TEK.COM> guyc@strl.labs.tek.com (Guy Cherry) writes:
>My mother's side of the family has a line that goes back to
>one of Martin Luther's sisters.  The line looks like this:

>I have a few questions:

>1. I used to think this was not so unique - everyone if you go back 10
generations can find
>someone interesting to be related to.  Now I'm not so sure. How frequent is
this kind of
>lineage? How often are they just made up by someone who found it convenient to
be related to
>someone famous?  What are some good places to start if one wants to verify
this lineage?

I think this must be frequent.  What is rare is the availability of data
to prove it.  Just to take my own case.  I descend from the 3 first
settlers of Quebec City (Louis Hebert, Guillaume Couillard and Abraham
Martin).  This is just like an American who have 3 ancestors on the Mayflower.
But, because most Quebecois descend from some 10000 original settlers,
it is probable that a lot are also descendants of the same 3 persons.
The same way, I descend from 11 of 12 couples that have the higher
number of descendants in 1729.

In other words, in a relatively small country like Quebec or any other
place with a group of say 5 millions of inhabitants (like Denmark,
Finland, many other countries), you will connect to most "known"
persons a few centuries ago.  The same apply to religions I think.
Or to other social groups where there will be such intra-group marriages
practice.

If you look in a longer distance, (more generations) you will find more and
more known persons.  So, I descend from Bude who was a well known
philosopher circa 1500, and from some famous France's members of Parliaments
of the same period.  I have also some (still controversed however) links
to Kings.  One is thru the Stewart-Menteith family with a gap of a few
generations.  Another is thru the Montmorency family with the Braque
family claiming descendance from a daughter of one Montmorency, while
this is not described in the Montmorency official family.  Most people
will have such lines, providing they find enough data.

If you look in a shorter distance, the great-cousin (or so) of my
great-grand-father is Wilfrid Laurier, a Canada Prime Minister.
The cousin of my cousins is Mario Lemieux, the famous hockey player.

Someone said with 5 jumps, you could reach everybody in the world.
A jump is just a relation.  For example, their is a jump from me
to you on the net.  Suppose one reader is the cousin of the President
of USA, then I am 4 jumps from the President.  In genealogy, it is
the same.  Just that we can go back in years and then connect to a lot
of persons.



>2. Does anyone know who the serious Luther scholars are these days.  Evidently
little
>is known about Luther's (many) siblings and I have found no mention of
Christine Luther
>in the few biographys in which I have looked.

>3. What is a "Probst"; is there still a Beverstedt?

>3. Of course if anyone recognizes any of the above names write back.

>--Guy Cherry
>--------
>UUCP:      ...!tektronix!crl.labs!guyc
>Email:     guyc@crl.labs.tek.com
>US Mail:    Guy Cherry, Computer Research Lab, Tektronix, Inc.
>                Box 500  MS 50-662, Beaverton OR 97077
>Phone:     503-627-1123


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