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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1996-02 > 0823388881


From: Stewart Baldwin <>
Subject: Re: Descents from Antiquity (was: Adultery redux)
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 23:08:01 GMT


Matt Buell <> wrote:
><< Are there those alive today who claim to be descendants of the >pharaohs?>>
>
>Anyone who is descended from Edward III can claim descent from the >Pharaohs
>thanks to the Augustan Society's charts "Descents from Antiquity." > the basic
>outline of this is available on the web at
>http://users.aol.com/eochaid/private/buelltut.txt
>
>~Matthew James Buell

There are a number of alleged descents from the Egyptian Pharaohs
or other kings of antiquity, but there is not a single one of them
which holds water when carefully investigated. The documentation
simply is not there on these claimed lines. These lines do not
fail because of one or two weak links, but because of a dozen or
more weak links. Even if you assign a 50-50 chance to each one of
the weak links (which is way too generous in my opinion), you still
get that the probability of the entire line being correct is
_much_ less than one in a thousand.

The best scholarly study on the _possibility_ of such descents is
that by Settipani: "Nos ancetres de l'antiquite" (1991). Although
this work has been treated by the naive as a documented proof of
descent from the Pharaohs, it should in fact be treated as a
starting point for such research. There is still much research to
be done if a valid line to antiquity is to be found, and Settipani
gives an excellent bibliography of previous work on the subject,
plus a number of _conjectural_ links to antiquity. Anyone who
reads Settipani's work carefully knows that quite a large number of
his links are unproven (as Settipani acknowledges on numerous
occasions), but are put forward by Settipani as possibilities which
are worth further research. It is probably a combination of the
language barrier and wishful thinking that has caused some to
remove all of the "dotted lines" from Settipani's charts, and
present them as fact.

I would love to see a descent which is well documented at every
generation and proceeds from the Egyptian Pharaohs to someone
living today (preferably me <;-)> ), but such a possibility lies in
the future, if at all, and probably cannot be accomplished unless
hitherto unknown sources are discovered.

[I saw a couple of articles on these alleged descents from
antiquity shortly before my Fall vacation, and I missed all of the
responses during the next couple of weeks. Thus, I apologize if
these comments just repeat things that others have already
covered thoroughly.]

Stewart Baldwin

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