Roman Bloodline?

[Zardnaar]

So last decade+ every now and then I play Crusader Kings II. Got me slightly interested in succession laws and bloodlines.

Obviously plenty of people have Roman ancestry but I've been undertghe impression no one can prove it.

Even royal familuess at best struggle to trace things much beyond 11th century and a few are reputed to be 9th century (Rollo/William the Conquer 11th century).

But that's a very Western PoV.

IDK how reliable this is.

Living Descendants of Mark Antony

THEODORE KOPALIANI Lifting a 2,000-year-old veil.

antigonejournal.com

But a succession of royal families in the Eastman apparently trace their ancestry to Mark Antony.

Anyway how legit is this or are there any other families that can plausibly trace their ancestry to classical Rome or antiquity. I know there's some than can trace to Eastern Roman Empire but that's not to different to current British royal family or Hapsburgs.

I'm aware that there's other places in the world with claims going back 2000+ years eg Japan's royal family and descendents of Buddha but not talking about those.

 

[Krachek]

The real hype would be being related to Alexander the great or the last King of Troy. That was quite popular during antiquity.

 

[MarkB]

I don't see what's so special about being able to prove that you have an ancestry that's shared by probably half the population of Europe.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't see what's so special about being able to prove that you have an ancestry that's shared by probably half the population of Europe.

More general interest. As I said I didn't think it could be done.

 

[Kaodi]

Mathematically speaking the idea is that every single person with European ancestors alive today is descended from every single European from 1,000 years ago with descendants who are alive today. Or something like that. And that would go even more for time periods further back. Basically if any of those famous old people have any descendants alive today , and you're European at all, you're one of them. I am sure it works basically the same for every other region of the world. Because if every ancestor in each tree was unique, every person would have something like 2^40 unique ancestors from 1,000 years ago. And yet there was only a tiny fraction of that many people alive. We are all Spartacus.

 

[Zardnaar]

Mathematically speaking the idea is that every single person with European ancestors alive today is descended from every single European from 1,000 years ago with descendants who are alive today. Or something like that. And that would go even more for time periods further back. Basically if any of those famous old people have any descendants alive today , and you're European at all, you're one of them. I am sure it works basically the same for every other region of the world. Because if every ancestor in each tree was unique, every person would have something like 2^40 unique ancestors from 1,000 years ago. And yet there was only a tiny fraction of that many people alive. We are all Spartacus.

True but Rome didn't take all of Europe. But records don't exist for a lot of places and it's marginal even with Rome.

 

[Kaodi]

Yes, but you do not need to live somewhere that Romans took over. You just need to live somewhere with immigration from places where Rome took over or who were in turn taken over by people who were previously taken over by Rome. 60-80 generations involves a lot of individual migration.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

So last decade+ every now and then I play Crusader Kings II. Got me slightly interested in succession laws and bloodlines.

Obviously plenty of people have Roman ancestry but I've been undertghe impression no one can prove it.

Even royal familuess at best struggle to trace things much beyond 11th century and a few are reputed to be 9th century (Rollo/William the Conquer 11th century).

But that's a very Western PoV.

IDK how reliable this is.

Living Descendants of Mark Antony

THEODORE KOPALIANI Lifting a 2,000-year-old veil.

antigonejournal.com

But a succession of royal families in the Eastman apparently trace their ancestry to Mark Antony.

Anyway how legit is this or are there any other families that can plausibly trace their ancestry to classical Rome or antiquity. I know there's some than can trace to Eastern Roman Empire but that's not to different to current British royal family or Hapsburgs.

I'm aware that there's other places in the world with claims going back 2000+ years eg Japan's royal family and descendents of Buddha but not talking about those.;

For Westerners, proving ancestry beyond someone like Charlemagne is practically impossible, due to a variety of factors

1) Break down in civil society in the west, which leads to poor genealogical records after the Crisis of the Third Century (even before any Dark Ages in Europe things are getting dicey)

2) The rise of dynasties in Constantinople not biologically connected to previous dynasties. Until the Macedonian dynasty comes to power there's a period of crisis in the east which leads to a lot of strongmen who are not related to the earlier Emperors by blood.

After the 9th century things get easier - Charlemagne (and his direct male ancestors) has a very well-documented family tree, and after the 11th century the Emperors of Constantinople start marrying families in western Europe so thing get easier.

I think in my own research I was able to trace back one line to Arnuf of Metz (but his connected to Charlemagne is not universally accepted), so Arnulf's purported son, Ansegisel is probably a better bet.

Any connection between the Carolingians and the Merovingians is purely speculative, as is any attempts to link the rulers of the Roman rump state of Soissons to Frankish dynasties.

The most reliable long ancestry of the world is probably the descendants of Confucious. The ancestry of the Japanese emperor is generally only trusted up to a certain point.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The real hype would be being related to Alexander the great or the last King of Troy. That was quite popular during antiquity.

There were a lot of speculative ancestries in the ancient world - I mean, the Romans believed Romulus and Remus were descended from Trojans, but most historians don't take it seriously.

Alexander the Great, is more plausible, but he only has two known children and both were killed off as threats pretty early on.

Antony and Cleopatra definitely have descendants - the pre-Islamic rulers of Morocco were descended from one of their daughters, and most likely there is still descendants there.

 

[Zardnaar]

There were a lot of speculative ancestries in the ancient world - I mean, the Romans believed Romulus and Remus were descended from Trojans, but most historians don't take it seriously.

Alexander the Great, is more plausible, but he only has two known children and both were killed off as threats pretty early on.

Antony and Cleopatra definitely have descendants - the pre-Islamic rulers of Morocco were descended from one of their daughters, and most likely there is still descendants there.

Last known Ptolemy descendents ruled Mauritius for few years post Cleopatra.

Think they were deposed early 1st century as client Kingdom became province.

Alot of Ronan adjacent kingdoms succession wasn't that reliable due to strongman basically. Feudalism was generally an improvement.