The Van Buren press., 1897-09-11
BILLIONS OF ANCESTORS
American Descendants from WA.
the C0nqueror.

from WiIii.
the Conqueror.
We can show mathematiealIv tba.,
child of to-day must have had NJ m
time of Alfred the Great an anoests us
$40, ,672,0o0,0 900 persons. In Tho ~.
of William the conqueror (thirtv ger
erations), this number reaches ssoa %
094, ,592. This is shown by the ordnsss
process of computation-two naraa.,
four grandparents, eight great grana
parents, and SO on. As the number .,
Englishmen in Alfred's time. or aus4
in Williams, was but very small frsa
ton of those numbers, most Of tbss
ancestors must have been renaatss
many times in the calculation. FaoS
person who leaves descendants is n linl
in the great chain of life; or, rather
a strand in life's great network. III.
blood of each single person in Afrad.
time who left capable descendants on
during to our day is Represented IN
every family of strict English descent
In other words, every Englshman i,
descended from Alfred the Great =.
very like also from the peasant woman
whose cakes Alfred is reputed to bav,
burned. Moreover, there are few a
any who do not share the blood Of vii.
liam the Conqueror. Most ancestra,
lines, il they could be traced Wo1td
go back to him by a hundred differ
ent strains. In fact, there are few
families in the south and east Of Emo.
land who have not more Norman blood
than the present royal family. Tbs
house of Guelph holds the throne, NOT
through nearness to William, but
through primogeniture, thing very
different from heredity.
Mr.. Edward j. Edwards, of Minneap.
oils, has recently sent me some very
interesting studies in genealogy vet
unpublished. These concern the lin.
cage of his little daughter, my niece.
Mary Stockton Edwards.
Mr.. Edwards finds that the little girl
like millions of others is descended
through at least two different line,
from William the Conqueror, The
lineage of one of these leads in 80 gene,
rations through the family name,
of Jordan Hawley, Waldo, El
derkin, Drake, Grenville, Courte
ney, De Bohun and Plantage
net to William the Conquefor
Sir Humphrey de Bohun married
Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter OF
King Edward |. In the ancestry Of
Kind Edward are the Saxon kings Ced
rie, Egbert, Alfred and tthelred, while
intermarriage with other royal lines
brings in Hengist, Hugh Capet, Charlie
magne, Otho the Great, Duncan, Rurik
Igor, San Fernando and a host of 9th.
er notables of whom one would have
less right to be proud. The Goarte'
neys, earls of Devon, are again de-
seended from the royal lines of France
Hugh Capet) and Russia, but not from
William the Conqueror. To Courteney
and Plantagenet again the Edwards
lineage has been traced along another
and quite different line.
The 70 families named, more or less
traced in the first series, containing
perhaps, 1000 representatives, are only
so many out of billions, if there were
no Implications. If there were no repe'
titions, there would be, instead Of
the 1000 known ancestors, 4 00,o0600C
of persons between Mary Stockton Ed
,,.Je hn
This genealogy is, therefore, but
strand from an enormous network
which, if written out in full, would
cover the earth with names. Only
through the family pride of the Courte
neys and brakes this fragment Of per-
sonal descent and personal history
happened to be preserved. BY inert
chance the pleIbeian record of the pie
beian descendants of the Puritan Joh
Drake, of Windsor, forms n jlinctio
with the sacred annals of the Englis
peerage.
Most of the English people named j
these records lived in Devon and Su'
sex, from which region their descend
ants came to America. The subord
nate lines traced out lead to the feuda
lords of those two counties. The in
teresting fact, however, is that in thi
there is nothing exceptional. Thes
people in America were New Engan
farmers for the most part, squires am
shipwrights, with lineage or chan
acted in no respect singular. Their sol
important heritage was the Puritai
conscience.-DrD David Starr Jordan, i
Arena.