I don't have the time to respond to all the e-mail I receive, let alone show it here, but I'll show two recent e-mails that can serve as a "How-to" and "How-not-to" guide for those who want to help improve the scope and accuracy of the Fabulous Pedigree.
From Christoph Freiherr Steinig von Steinegg:
Dear Jamie, your genealogy pages are one of the best I ever saw. But nevertheless, I think, I suggest you to change or add some data which I found. ... I HAVE SOME MORE DATA FROM THE TREE: von Steinegg taken out of Book: "Beschreibung der Edlen" from Schlesien. Year I think 1720 (Was hard to read). ... Best regards Christoph Freiherr Steinig von Steinegg
Freiherr Steinig provided a Steinegg line traced all the way back to ancient Dukes of the Alemanni but because the Steineggs don't figure in royal pedigrees, their ancestry is completely missing from almost all on-line genealogies. I was happy to add the main lineage for this ancient German family.
I'm constantly double-checking royal pedigrees and marking the most speculative lines with "poss." or "prob. not", but it's a never-ending battle! Accuracy varies throughout the database. Some sections (e.g. French and Scottish) are largely accurate (except for ancient lines, which are usually suspect); some sections (ancient Norse, ancient Irish) are mostly mythical; medieval Welsh pedigrees have many errors even in primary sources, as William Covington (covo18@hotmail.com) points out:
Your pedigree ( so called ) regarding Lord John ap Adam and his ancestry and descendants is absurd and ridiculous. There are so many errors on your website that the best recourse is to remove it and for yourself to study history at a university, where you might profit from correct methods of historical research. William Covington. ( UK).
As a general note, specific corrections work best for me. Here I have to guess what Mr. Covington is referring to! There are several John ap Adam's in the database; I'm afraid he managed to get them mixed up!
That America's Presidents Adams have agnatic descent from the John ap Adam who was Lord of Beverstone may be conjectural, but it has been published in genealogical journals and it is my practice to show such speculations. Two ancestries for the Lord ap Adam were shown on my site in the Version 23.4 Mr. Covington references; the primary one is based on the official genealogy of the Herbert Earls of Pembroke. In the latest Version 24, I show an ancestry conjectured by Darrell Wolcott, an innovative researcher in ancient Welsh genealogies.
(I didn't check to see if Wolcott's work meets with Mr. Covington's approval. :-) I'm glad Mr. Covington didn't notice the descent of Alexander the Great, via Greek hero Achilles, from Nereus the Sea God. I'm afraid it would have given him apoplexy!)
Which parts of the database I work on varies erratically, stumbling on missing families by chance as I make minor corrections here and there. Thus any brief summary of recent changes will be misleading, but here are some:
(Be aware again that I use Oliveira's great on-line database for many of my medieval European additions, so I often end up with Portuguese names even for non-Portuguese people!)
I just noticed I was missing part of Ivan the Terrible's pedigree. One thing leading to another, I then improved my coverage of Italian families like Moncada, Tocco and Ruffo. I partly cleared up confusion about Martha of Carrick's two same-named daughters, tried to clarify the confusion about Hugh Capet's noble wife, made corrections and additions to Glassary, Whalesborough, Scrymgeour, Babylonian Kings, etc. added a mythic version of Norse descent from Roman Gods and Trojans that I was still missing, and added aster, olive and a few birds to Other life section.
As measured by increase in database size, I seem to have slowed down in recent months. (I'm not sure if this change in activity is due to self-satisfaction, or to dismay over my own inadequacies! :-)
Something you may notice on a few pages at the website are unobtrusive ads. It seemed time to let the website help pay for itself. They're very cheap, so if you want some ads, drop me an e-mail!
In these revision summaries I emphasize additions, but be aware that I'm also constantly making corrections, adding historical notes, etc. For the latest version, major additions include
I've added more coverage of ancient Greek and Roman lines (mostly provided by Dim, though I got the Hippocrates pedigree from Charles Carroll Kemp). This led to expanded coverage of Hellenic Kings (though I'm still missing many Kings of Sparta), Greek myth and Etruscan gods.
Everyone who's done these kind of genealogies knows how easy it is to get the same person into the database twice, often under very different names. I still find these in my database; most recently noticing that Henry de URTIACO and Henry de l' ORTI are the same person.
Dim I Nticoudis commented on his own favorite sources, which I've added to the Sources page.
Here's a comment that Martin Quartermaine wanted to add to my Guestbook:
I wanted to leave my comments in your guestbook, but as it is not working I send them direct. No need to reply, unless you want to, but just wanted to show my appreciation: "I have used this site for years. I try to compile my ancestors from about 10 main sites, who all tend to have slightly different methods and intentions (ie Roglo, Stirnet and Fabpedigree) but all complement each other. Fabpedigree is the greatest for the more ancient lines (unless you are Jamie Allen and his recent ancestors) and is unique in that a lot of the alternatives and doubts are included. Nothing is certain about the past and as so long as the alternatives are not too many, one can try to incorporate the possibiities in the pedigree to make it more believable or at least make it evident that one shouldn't take the information that seriously. Too many sites claim ancestries, without any proviso or doubt. Only criticism is that I would have liked the main sources for each individual. I started many years ago on my pedigree initially without including sources, but realised that the only real way to gain credibilty is to show them and have since been slowly redoing my 30,000 odd ancestors and updating with information from other sites also. But basically thank you for your wonderful site."
I apologize that my Guest Book is out of order. Part of the problem was the spam it was attracting. I'm not very sophisticated at Web programming, but will try to set-up a new Guestbook without the spam problem. An alternative, if someone else will take charge of the idea, would be a Yahoo or Google Group for comments and questions about the Fabulous Pedigree.
And I do understand Martin's complaint about my not showing sources. My excuse is that it would have been almost impossible for me to produce a database of this size if I also maintained accurate and useful source references. I do mention some of my sources on my Sources page.
More additions due to Dim. And I'm not even even finished incorporating his input yet, so there may be a Version 23.1 sooner rather than later!
Recently I stumbled across the official great title of Elizabeth the Second; I may as well republish it here:
Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth, Baroness Greenwich, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Garter, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Sovereign of the Order of British India, Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Burma, Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.
With a high-speed system, it's not too hard to rebuild all the pages, so I prepared an update just a few weeks after Version 22.3 despite that there weren't so many additions or corrections. (No sooner had I done this, when Dim sent me a number of additions and corrections, for characters in Beowulf and elsewhere, and I kept updating: V22.5, then V22.6.)
I'd added some early Turkish dynasties in the previous version and Dim I Nticoudis sent me some additions and corrections for those. One of the Turkish Emirs married a descendant of a Balkan Prince; an ancestor of that Balkan Prince married a relative of Pope Innocent III, which led to Italy's Comis family (the early Counts of Tusculum), one of whom supposedly married the daughter of a Frankish King. I've still not figured out that confusing connection, but looking at an Internet pedigree showing one theory, I noticed that the Frankish noble who took over the rule of Friesland, married the "daughter of Radboud III of Friesland." No Radboud III in my database! After all my efforts, I was somehow still missing several of the early Kings of Friesland!
So, early Turkey segued to the Balkans, then to Italy, then the Franks, then on to Friesland! One thing sure leads to another!
As Dim pointed out, Italy's Comis family produced several Popes. I've shown some as "other Children", but haven't given each his own page yet. In this latest update, I've also increased coverage of England's Clayton and Colepeper families.
More corrections!! More additions!! A pedigree for Andrea Doria (famous Liberator of Genoa), additions for Turkish sultans, mythology, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Lady Di's ancestors, Coleville, Bassingbourn, De La Mare, Ipstones, Achard, Bromley. Et cetera. Added more life forms (crabs, spider, ant, chicken, rodents, eagle, redwood, carp, etc.)
Just when I was pleased with Version 22.1, Dim I Nticoudis sent me a large batch of additions and corrections. Over the years, his contributions have been so extensive that I've thought of renaming the Website: "Dim and Jamie's Fabulous Pedigree". I wish I had time to include all the historic notes he offers. This time he's helped me improve coverage of Biblical lineages, and the Montferrat family.
Everytime I breathe a sigh of relief ("Whew! Now I'm proud of this database and can relax"), I seem to get a new burst of energy. I hadn't even had time to upload Version 22 (a somewhat difficult task given my slow Internet connections), when I make a Version 22.1! I'll mention only one news item for it:
Someone wrote to ask about their Payne ancestor who has Y-chromosome of Q haplogroup, very rare in Europe. They speculated that the Payne ancestor might have been a Crusader, and that an imposter returned from the Holy Land, where Q haplogroup is less rare.
The Payne lineage hasn't shown up among my ancestors are those of Prince William, etc., but I took another look at the genealogies of the famous Crusader and Templar Grandmaster Hughes de Payen. In some Internet Gedcoms he is shown as great grandson of someone nicknamed ``The Moor of GARDILLE'' ... A Moor might bear that Q haplogroup!
Too much speculation involved to take seriously perhaps; is it just an intriguing coincidence?
The change from Version 21.4 to 21.5 started out as a very minor revision, but I renamed it to be "Version 22" after making a large number of minor changes and corrections to the website structure. I was missing King Conrad of Jerusalem: he's an ancestor of Emperor Conrad IV but I was missing that connection because I had the wrong mother for Conrad IV. I've also added four more Popes (along with an index entry for Popes and their parents), the Abbasid Caliphs (despite their lacking descendants), the wives I was missing among Jacob's 12 sons (along with their alleged ancestries), some more other life forms (lichen, magnolia, cat), alternate lineages for the Exilarchs, Dukes of Noailles, a Batthyany lineage, medieval lineages for Meppershall and a branch of Basset, along with many other minor corrections, clarifications and additions.
The Version 22 website did not quite fit on a 700 MB CD-Rom, so I made some very minor changes to the website to make it fit. Most of these changes (such as occasional abbreviations in the mouse-over windows) will be barely noticeable. (This is one reason I'm switching to the Flash-Drive format.)
In version 21.3, England's King Charles I was shown with a Spanish Princess as wife; Queen Elizabeth I was shown with Edward Earl Oxford as husband, and so on. Such nonsense is caused by fictional links, for example I wanted to depict a marriage proposed for Charles I that was abandoned due to political uproar. In version 21.4 I've added a "Not!" notation on some of the pages where a fictional spouse is shown. I hope this leads to greater clarity, but be aware I've missed many places where the "Not!" indicator would be appropriate, and when I do show it may have accidentally introduced more confusion. (For example, a fictitious alternate pedigree will mark the spouse but not the children with the "Not!" marker. Rather than trying to fix these details, I'd rather develop a brilliant new approach to the whole database! Any ideas?)
I didn't stop work after all and in the weeks after Version 21 I produced minor revisions including
I've tried to show many of the earliest ancestors of European royalty, but as recently as June 2009 I had to add the pedigree of Hostivit Prince of Prague (d. ca 870). He was a loose end but is often shown as 7-great grandson of the 7th century Duke Czechus. I stumbled across this line only after deciding to add `Good King Wenceslas' (great-grandson of Prince Hostivit). I continue to add people who have great historic importance and parents or grand-parents already in the database; in addition to King Wenceslas, recent such additions include St. Patrick of Ireland and King Richard III's sister, Margaret Duchess of Burgundy. Other additions for Version 21 include several medieval Welsh noblemen, a few more modern English noblemen, the late King Hussein of Jordan, and various miscellaneous lines (Scots, Dutch, Biblical, etc.).
I used to play a lot of Blackjack where Twenty-one is the best you can hope for. Twenty-two is just one too many. I've spent a lot of time on this genealogy project and now I've reached a point of "diminishing returns." This Blackjack version (Version 21) will be the Final Version. At least I hope so. (Anyone have the phone number for Genealogaholics Anonymous?)
The genealogies involving Beli Mawr of the Britains are very confused, partly because several different Kings named Beli or Heli are often conflated. With the help of David Hughes, expert on ancient British genealogy, and his book The British Chronicles I've tried to straighten this part out somewhat. But any remaining errors are still my own, not Mr. Hughes'. Beli Mawr ('B') was one of the "marked ancestors" but I've deleted him from that function, as such notations might be misleading.
I'm reading an interesting book about Pharaoh Tutankhamen (though so far it's led to only slight changes in the Egyptian pedigrees). The concession to open Tutankhamen's tomb was held by the 5th Earl of Carnaervon, who may have died due to the "Curse of Tutankhamen." This George Herbert is descended from two Knights of the Garter who were not yet in my database, but this is not why I added him. The famous Rothschild banking family was not in my database, so I added Carnaervon and his wife, Almina Wombwell when I learned she was the illegitimate child of a Rothschild!
A noticeable change with Version 20.2 concerns the famous descendant list at the top of each pedigree page, e.g. "Lady Diana's 4-g grandmother". Before, the page said simply "Female" (or "Male") when none of the "famous descendants" applied. Now, the page may instead read something like "Lady Diana's 1st cousin 6x removed" or "Jamie's 2nd cousin 7x removed." At most one such cousin will be mentioned. Details here. (This is a brand new feature, "hot off the presses." I hope it works right, but won't be surprised if there are bugs.)
Version 20.2 has miscellaneous additions, especially adding a pedigree for Philippe, future King of Belgium. (Philippe now replaces his uncle, King Baudouin I, in the famous dsescendant lists at the top of pedigree pages.) Philippe's mother was not yet in the database so adding her brought in many lines of Italian and Western European nobles including a descent from Hernando CORTES de Pizzaro. Another added line shows Charles Bourbon (present Pretender King of Spain) as a descendant of Cesare BORGIA. Version 20.1 had other miscellaneous additions, especially adding some of the Knights of the Garter I was still missing.
More miscellaneous additions for Version 20, including legendary Hindu Kings, several of the 18th century Knights of the Garter I was missing, and some of the present-day pretenders to the thrones of England, France, etc.
Among these pretenders is Carlos Bourbon, Duke of Calabria (b. 1938); with one exception, his immediate ancestors are high-ranked Bourbons or Archduke/Archduchesses of Austria. The exception is his mother's mother's mother, Isabel de Croy (1856-1931). Isabel was herself a high noble (her father was Duke of Croy, her maternal grandfather was Prince of Ligne), but her ancestors were not in my database. I might have just added a "pedigree at WorldConnect" notation, but instead decided to copy her pedigree (from one of the databases I consult regularly), with new ancestors as early as 11th century from families like Aubusson, Beynac, Blanquefort, Bournonville, Cardaillac, Comminges, Croy, Dauvet, Harcourt, Lautrec, Lomagne, Mailly, Montaut, Montlezun, Rochechouart, Salm, Talleyrand, Terride, etc.
I've expanded coverage of Knights of the Garter, added some medieval Scottish lines I was missing, added some 20th century lines for some fo the "Pretender Kings" in Europe, etc. etc.
I wish I had time to prepare more webpages. I did one new one:Precedence of Catholic rulers.
I've also added "Pop-up Mode Controls" to the Main Index Page. I know very little Javascript, but risked this improvement, which was probably long overdue.
Let me remind everyone again not to "read too much" into the language in which a name is spelled. I combine many sources (lately I've gotten much data from the splendid database of Camilo Jose Coelho dos Santos Oliveira) and am often reluctant to "correct" spelling. Many of the names in Camilo's database are shown in Portuguese (even if the person was German!); sometimes I try to change them back to German (or English) spelling, but sometimes, afraid of introducing new errors, I don't.
With my fine host (Lunarpages) and my new faster laptop it is easy to update the website, and I've prepared two minor updates recently. I've made notes about some of the "pretender" royal lines, for example adding a pedigree for George, future Pretender Czar of Russia. George's maternal grandmother is descended from the BAGRATID Kings of KACHETI, so this is a fun new lineage.
Someone has compared compiling genealogies with assembling jigsaw puzzles. Recently I chanced on an obvious connection that seems to be missing from all the on-line Gedcoms available at Ancestry/Rootsweb! The legendary Eyfuru SVAFLAMASDATTER had been in my database for a while, shown as 6-g grandmother of Ivar `Wide Fathom' (himself a (probably legendary) Swedish King who appears in most Viking pedigrees). Her father, as we know from her name, was Svafrlami or something like that; was he the famous legendary King of Russia who inherited the magic sword Tyrfing from his mother? The Gedcoms just showed his name, with no ancestry.
Working the other way, I looked in Gedcoms for the legendary King Gylfi, Svafrlami's grandfather. He was there, with the connection to Svafrlami shown, but with no descendants shown for Svafrlami. I made the obvious connection, though none of the Gedcoms with Gylfi had his great granddaughter Eyfuru, and vice versa. This isn't just a confusion based on similar names; the descendants of Eyfuru SVAFLAMASDATTER, though appearing without notes in the Gedcoms, are precisely the names in the Tyrfing myth.
Re-examining old data I've already done, I frequently find that someone with a simple name and no dates was actually an Earl or Lord Mayor. I've even found two Holy Pontiffs in the database with no indication, including Pope Alexander VI who was in the database twice, once as Alexander, once with his birthname Rodrigo Borgia.
In Version 24, there would now be 130,634 pedigree pages, however 17,663 pages are suppressed as trivial (see discussion in section below) so in fact there are only 112,971 individual pedigree pages.
I've gradually been adding to the U.S. Presidents in my database: 16 have their own pages and another 24 are mentioned under children without pages. On the list of famous descendants at the top of pedigree pages, I've deleted Roosevelt and Washington replacing them with "U.S. President" which can refer to any of the 40 U.S. Presidents with pages or mentioned in child lists.
Beginning with Version 16 I've made a change to the data presentation: I suppress the pedigree page in certain cases where it would have no useful information at all. The page is only suppressed when the individual has no parents in the database, no alternates, no notes, no date or place information (unless both it and the name are very short), a shortish name, only one child shown, and when the spouse, if any is shown, shows only the one child. The name continues to appear, as spouse of ancestor, on other pages where it would normally appear, but without a clickable link. The name continues to appear on index pages, but the clickable link will take you to the person's child.
There's still just as much information as before: the pages eliminated contributed nothing. To depict database growth with consistency, I'll continue to refer to the full number of pedigree pages there would be without the suppressions.
The database continues to grow, selectively. Version 16 has 103,966 pedigree pages. Over the years I've eventually included 14 U.S. Presidents: Washington, two Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, two Harrisons, Pierce, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, and two Roosevelts. No new Presidents for Version 16, unless you count Barack Obama, who is, as I write, the front-runner to be 44th President.
There are 101 persons on Hart's famous list of Most Influential Persons (counting the Wright brothers as one, but including both of the major 'Shakespeare' candidates); 32 of them are now in my database. I've added Charles Darwin, Vasco da Gama, and William Shakespeare for Version 16; Hernando Cortez, Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon were also added recently; the other 26 were in my database for other reasons before I'd ever heard of Hart's list.
I've added a few famous Americans including Harriet Beecher Stowe (who inherits her mtDNA from my ancestor Agnes Harris) and Jonathan Edwards. I've filled in several missing parts from royal pedigrees, especially French, Portuguese, Spanish and early Welsh ancestors. I was missing the d' ARPAJON family; in adding its connections coverage was increased for several other French families. And so on, and so on.
In the past I made the Fabulous Pedigree available on CD-Rom, but for the future I think Flash-Drive ("memory stick") will be at least as convenient for everyone. (If I'm wrong about this, please e-mail and tell me.)
The Fabulous Pedigree Version 24 is available on-line at fabpedigree.com, or on Flash-Drive ("memory stick"). For anyone who purchased a CD-Rom before Version 24, write me and I will mail you a free copy of the Version 24 Flash-Drive. (I can't afford to send more than one free Flash-Drive per paid order: If you take the free Version 24 CD, you'll need to pay for Version 25 Flash-Drive, if there ever is such a thing.)
Nikolai Scheuring provided us with a chart showing the Most Recent Common Ancestor of today's European Monarchs.
For my previous "newsletter", Click here.
(For even older news, Click here.)