Saturday, October 02, 2010

Circle of Life: Ancestors #000

I have shared in the past my enjoyment of genealogy. It was a gift given to me by my great uncle Homer Bible who fancied himself as a bit of a genealogist and family archivist himself. After his death, I took his notes and eventually used them to begin my own research. His work was helpful, even inspiring, but also flawed. I soon discovered at my disposal resources that he never imagined. We build upon the Ancestors.

Early on, I decided to abandon the structure and metaphor of the "Family Tree" for a circle. The circle felt instinctively more egalitarian, and in an age of DNA, all of my ancestors are equally, by degree of separation responsible for the genes that make me ME.
This is a portion of the representation of my known ancestors that I have placed upon the walls (and ceiling) of my study. Blue blocks contain the male ancestors and yellow the female. The breakdown of my success at identifying ancestors in the direct parenting lines by generations looks like this:

ME & MY ANCESTORS
Generation-Members-Known-Percent-Relationship
0 - 1 - 1 - 100% - ME
1 - 2 - 2 - 100% - Parents
2 - 4 - 4 - 100% - Grandparents
3 - 8 - 8 - 100% - Great-Grandparents
4 - 16 - 9 - 56.25% - Greatx2-Grandparents
5 - 32 - 14 - 43.75% - Greatx3-Grandparents
6 - 64 - 18 - 28.125% - Greatx4-Grandparents
7 - 128 - 20 - 15.625% - Greatx5-Grandparents
8 - 256 - 27 - 10.547% - Greatx6-Grandparents
9 - 512 - 31 - 6.055% - Greatx7-Grandparents
10 - 1,024 - 27 - 2.367% - Greatx8-Grandparents
11 - 2,048 - 19 - 0.928% - Greatx9-Grandparents
12 - 4,096 - 17 - 0.415% - Greatx10-Grandparents
13 - 8,192 - 16 - 0.195% - Greatx11-Grandparents
14 - 16,384 - 14 - 0.085% - Greatx12-Grandparents
15 - 32,768 - 12 - 0.037% - Greatx13-Grandparents
16 - 65,536 - 7 - 0.011% - Greatx14-Grandparents
17 - 131,072 - 8 - 0.006% - Greatx15-Grandparents
18 - 262,144 - 1 - 0.0004% - Greatx16-Grandparents
19 - 542,288 - 1 - 0.0002% - Greatx17-Grandparents

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