Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping Discussion/Appreciation

[rderoch]

I've been doing research on ancestry.com and discovered that Eleanor of Aquitaine is my 26th great grandmother (that's 26 "greats" followed by "grandmother"). I was rather astounded to find that. Ancestry.com has a neat little thing that shows relationship to me and gives a list of the people in the descendant list. Just to be sure, I looked through history books and followed the list down through the centuries, and it would seem to be accurate. Eleanor was first married to King Louis VII of France, had two daughters with him, divorced him, and promptly married King Henry II of England (10 years her junior), and had 10 children with him, including Richard the Lionhearted. I would love to see Amanda play this woman; I think she'd do a marvelous job, since Eleanor had lots of personality traits I could see Amanda portraying. She was also very outspoken for her time (the mid to late 1100's).

I also discovered that Eleanor is a distant ancestor of a friend of mine, whom I've known for over 30 years, and if this is true, that would make us distant cousins. I suspect this is the case with lots of people down through the ages who became friends and don't know that they are remotely related in some way.

We're cousins too! Eleanor is my 23rd great grandmother 3 times, once by marriage, and then through two of her children (one of them is Richard). I think that makes us 23rd cousins 3 times removed, or something along that line. Lately I've been trying to get more verification of each link starting with me. Will require some travel though I think, since so many birth, marriage records etc aren't available. Trying to confirm links that wil get me into the DAR. I've found about a dozen ancestors that fought, but you need to prove each generational link. A friend of mine has found two ancestors that came over on the Mayflower. Mine seem to have come over aboout 15 years later. I wish there was a better way to verify all the things we find. I've traced a line back to the vikings, but who the heck knows if it's really true.

Do you watch Who Do You Think You Are? I blame them for all of this. There's also a cool series that started this year on PBS called Finding Your Roots.

[lame moose (mocha)]

I've been doing research on ancestry.com and discovered that Eleanor of Aquitaine is my 26th great grandmother (that's 26 "greats" followed by "grandmother"). I was rather astounded to find that. Ancestry.com has a neat little thing that shows relationship to me and gives a list of the people in the descendant list. Just to be sure, I looked through history books and followed the list down through the centuries, and it would seem to be accurate. Eleanor was first married to King Louis VII of France, had two daughters with him, divorced him, and promptly married King Henry II of England (10 years her junior), and had 10 children with him, including Richard the Lionhearted. I would love to see Amanda play this woman; I think she'd do a marvelous job, since Eleanor had lots of personality traits I could see Amanda portraying. She was also very outspoken for her time (the mid to late 1100's).

I also discovered that Eleanor is a distant ancestor of a friend of mine, whom I've known for over 30 years, and if this is true, that would make us distant cousins. I suspect this is the case with lots of people down through the ages who became friends and don't know that they are remotely related in some way.

i didn't use ancestry .com, but traced my ancestry back to adam and eve. i guess we're all related if you go back far enough.

[hedwig]

We're cousins too! Eleanor is my 23rd great grandmother 3 times, once by marriage, and then through two of her children (one of them is Richard). I think that makes us 23rd cousins 3 times removed, or something along that line. Lately I've been trying to get more verification of each link starting with me. Will require some travel though I think, since so many birth, marriage records etc aren't available. Trying to confirm links that wil get me into the DAR. I've found about a dozen ancestors that fought, but you need to prove each generational link. A friend of mine has found two ancestors that came over on the Mayflower. Mine seem to have come over aboout 15 years later. I wish there was a better way to verify all the things we find. I've traced a line back to the vikings, but who the heck knows if it's really true.

Do you watch Who Do You Think You Are? I blame them for all of this. There's also a cool series that started this year on PBS called Finding Your Roots.

Hi cousin!

Spoiler:

That's so cool. I've just been having fun with this genealogy stuff to see where it goes. I've been contacted by three other people who have seen my tree on ancestry.com and wanted to share information. Two of them are my 4th cousins in that we have the same great grandfather, who was Mormon who had about 15 wives and somewhere around 50 children from whom came many, many grandchildren and so on.

I've discovered that on my Dad's side of the family, some of his people came over within about 10 years after the Mayflower; I don't really care whether they came on it or later; it's just fascinating finding stuff about them.

There are a couple of lines that I've traced back to BC times, but as you say, who can tell if it's accurate. I'm still fascinated by this stuff.

I'm about ready to sign up for cable again with some of the things like you mention on PBS and the Who Do You Think You Are? I'd be interested in watching those. I got rather fed up with TV about six months and cancelled my DirecTV subscription, but am finding that I miss it enough I may sign up again, though for one of the smaller pkgs and if I can get a good deal on the rate.

Most of the records I have were loaned to me by my Dad's sister, who got them from one of her uncles, and I started getting interested in family history about in the mid-70's and have gotten reinterested in it periodically since then.

My Mom's side of the family is very difficult to find anything on, partly because her parents were born and raised in Ireland and records for where they lived have not been easy to find. I do know I have cousins still in those areas; if I could find their names, I could probably write to them and ask about the family history.

Anyway, good to know I've found another relative while doing something fun and enjoyable. ((((hugs))))

[hedwig]

i didn't use ancestry .com, but traced my ancestry back to adam and eve. i guess we're all related if you go back far enough.

A friend of mine said that some people he knows also traced their ancestry back to adam and eve, partly because of the begats in the Bible, but also from some other source which he didn't name.

My thought, too, about all of us being related if we could go back far enough.

[Skydiver]

there was a mass extinction event millions of years ago. they've tracked down mitochondrial DNA and at one point the human race was down to less than 100 different females....so yeah, most of us are related somehow because most if not all of those females were related.

[Skydiver]

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresource...igration.shtml

DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago.

hey cousins how's it going?

[suse]

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresource...igration.shtml

DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago.

hey cousins how's it going?

So, Eve and Noah? (Yes, I know the years are way off. )

[Samfan13]

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresource...igration.shtml

DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago.

hey cousins how's it going?

Hi cousins You guys got my attention and interest into this ancestor thing. I might check out the Ancestry.com website myself now

[RTechnik]

So we all are product of incest? and what about all the studies about if population of species go lower than (was it 500?) the species go extinct as there is not enough individuals?

[lame moose (mocha)]

all humans started with adam and eve. the major event-the 40 days +40 nights of rain wiped out all humans except noah and his wife and kids and their off spring. so we are all descendants of noah and his wife. incest...yes, but it was not illegal at that time apparently. so noah the ark builder was our Mega-great grandfather.

[Celandine]

That's if you believe the religious stories.

Me? Not much.

[picardythirds]

To bring things back on topic....

Had my own little AT thought/moment today at work. We did a quiz of famous mothers in lieu of Mothers day this Sunday, and one of the questions was "Who of Aquataine, was Richard 1 mother?" I just kept hearing Amanda talk about how she one day hoped to play Eleanor of Aquitaine so I was able to tell all our clients the answer as they had no idea. Of course my geekyness didn't stop there as I also got the answer to the Star Wars question - no one got that one either...weird.

I love moments like those even if no one else understands them. I had a jeopardy moment like that with our friends. I think the question was like which committee holds funding for military operations and because I had been watching the SG1 eps with kinsey with them, I was able to answer, correctly "what is the appropriations committee"

[Chelle DB]

I've been doing research on ancestry.com and discovered that Eleanor of Aquitaine is my 26th great grandmother (that's 26 "greats" followed by "grandmother"). I was rather astounded to find that.

That is soo cool!
I'd love to follow my family ancestry but am a little scared of what I might find. My auntie in Germany has traced back our family tree - rather that of my fathers side - and apparently we royalty. Yeah - I'm just not that posh but!!

[sasha713]

That is soo cool!
I'd love to follow my family ancestry but am a little scared of what I might find. My auntie in Germany has traced back our family tree - rather that of my fathers side - and apparently we royalty. Yeah - I'm just not that posh but!!

All I know about my ancestors is that I am related to some royalty(not sure how) and my ancestor was a criminal sent out to Australia on the first fleet because he stole a book. He was a lawyers assistant, and took the book to learn...he was also only 15 at the time I guess my liking of books is in my genes

[Chelle DB]

We're cousins too! Eleanor is my 23rd great grandmother 3 times, once by marriage, and then through two of her children (one of them is Richard). I think that makes us 23rd cousins 3 times removed, or something along that line.

Awww...a family reunion!!! So cool!

there was a mass extinction event millions of years ago. they've tracked down mitochondrial DNA and at one point the human race was down to less than 100 different females....so yeah, most of us are related somehow because most if not all of those females were related.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresource...igration.shtml
DNA studies indicate that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who lived in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago.
hey cousins how's it going?

Hello cousins - and sisters & brothers & what nots!!! OMG - very cool information. I also heard that a third of the worlds population has a link to Genghis Kahn - now that's scary!! Not sure how accurate that is tho. Too many documentaries ago.