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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1996-02 > 0823478090


From: Jared Olar <>
Subject: Re: Descents from Antiquity (was: Adultery redux)
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:54:50 -0600
In-Reply-To: <4f0psh$9ip@ns.campus.mci.net>


On Sat, 3 Feb 1996, Stewart Baldwin wrote:

>
> 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
>
-----------------------------------
In point of fact, the research project "Descents From Antiquity" is an
ongoing endeavor by no means even near complete. The Augustan Society
does NOT 'remove the dotted lines,' but clearly identifies each and every
proposed relationship which is only a hypothetical one. I don't doubt
many have gotten overeager and removed the dotted lines, but the scholars
of the Augustan Society emphatically state that virtually all of such
lineages are unproved.

As far as 'probability' goes, however, I have a feeling that a large
percentage of the human population since the days of Rameses II have
inherited his genes. Speaking in terms of evolutionary biology,
'dominant males' like Rameses usually do what they can to spread their
genes all over the place. (Rameses had a ridiculous amount of children.) It
may never be provable, but it only makes sense that such aggressive 'alpha
males' like the Pharaohs and kings and emperors of the far past have managed
to insinuate their genes into a large percentage of succeeding generations,
usually through collateral and cadet branches which often were left out of
history.

Like many of those who've been responding to this topic, I am skeptical
that DNA testing will ever be of any use in settling controversies of
genealogical descents in far-off times. But I am also skeptical of
statistics and percentages of probability, rating likelihoods of error in
pedigrees. I think it only obfuscates--either A was the ancestor of C by
means of B, or else A was not. If A _WAS_ C's ancestor, though it cannot
be thoroughly established by documentary evidence, it doesn't really help to
say that there is, say, a 35% probability that A _WAS NOT_ C's ancestor.
Percentages don't tell us who begat whom, only how confident we feel in
our conclusions. What's the likelihood that something that happened, but
which cannot be conclusively proved by available evidence, did not in fact
happen? 0% What's the likelihood that we are right if we conclude that
something did not happen when in fact it did? 0% "Maybes are for
babies," I always say. If you don't know one way or the other, just say
so, and leave probability to the gamblers.

Jared Olar

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