Researching a Pedigree Back to Adam

Question

As a young adolescent, I cut my teeth on genealogy figuring I would start at the beginning -- with biblical Adam.  Most of us for one reason or another no longer attempt such a feat.  But in medieval days such a pedigree was popular, and the noted Lewis Dwnn published one such pedigree in the early 1600s.

I thought it would be fun to analyse this pedigree and created a free-space profile for it.  The first 3 or 4 centuries are factual material which can be sourced.  Then as one goes back one has famous people interspersed with generations comprised simply of names.  

At a certain point, one jumps from legendary rulers of ancient Britain to ancient Troy, and then back to the Bible.

As a pure genealogist, one would have no interest in people who cannot be verified with reliable source documents.  But as an historian -- and many of us have found genealogy leads us into the study of history and geography and literature -- there is some curiosity.  How did these stories develop?  What are the stories that linked ancient Britain to more ancient Troy, and was there some story that made someone think of a particular connection between ancient Troy and a descendant of the biblical Noah?

I invite anyone who shares my curiosity about such things to join me in expanding on this analysis of a Dwnn pedigree!

Here is the link to the free space profile:  https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Space:John_Pughe%27s_Descent_from_Adam&public=1#Sources

Comments

Found one clue -- the legendary connection between England and Brutus of Troy goes back to the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1135.  

Much more at Wikipedia article on Brutus of Troy  

And here is a major source of it:  Genealogy in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History

So virtually all of the legendary parts of this pedigree trace back to Geoffrey of Monmouth and before him to Nennius.  That still leaves the question, though -- did they make it up, or was the story already circulating somehow, and they simply wrote it down?

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The origins of these legendary genealogies in Nennius’s Historia Brittonum was discussed by Francis Jones in his article on Welsh genealogical sources (see p. 322–325).

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Awesome resource!  Thanks so much for sharing this -- I find myself reading it from the beginning!

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You might find it interesting to read Michael Russell's 2017 book  King Arthur and the Kings of England. He deconstructs the various elements  woven together by Geoffrey of Monmouth to form his composite Arthur.

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Descent from the Trojans occurs in many European genealogies as some of these online articles discuss

https://aeon.co/ideas/for-centuries-european-aristocrats-proudly-claimed-foreign-ancestry

You can only see a couple of pages of this one but still interesting.

A longer dissertation

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Using various sources I have linked to Adam, Even tho I realize in strict genealogical circles it is not accepted, I am fascinated by it. From this post I have received much to read up on and must thank you for posting this!

Answer 1

Pretty interesting, Jack!

Answer 2

Thanks for sharing, Jack. I'm very interested in this.

Answer 3

I doubt that it would be possible given the way DNA gets transmitted from one generation to the next.  Getting back to Ev,on the other hand, might be more manageable since a woman, unless the DNA mutates,always inherits one of her mother's X chromosomes and the DNA within it.

Comments

I think we need to be clear about the "it", as in "I doubt that "it" would be possible"!  When the "it" in our conversation is what I call "pure genealogy", it has to stop when the reliable documentation stops.  In the domain of what I call pure genealogy, even DNA can't take us beyond reliable documentation;  DNA can tell you that it's highly probable that George and John are related, but from the perspective of pure genealogy you don't actually know they are related until you can show it with documents.

The Pedigree I'm looking at has some pure genealogy in it back to 1200 or 1300, but beyond that there is no reliable documentation, so my question -- the "it" I'm talking about --  is really about the stories, not the genealogy.  The Welsh bards were story tellers, and the pedigrees are part of the stories they told of ancient heroes and gods.  In this pedigree the stories go back before Wales to Greece and Greek and Roman gods, and then back to biblical characters.  So my question is really about the history of the stories -- how did they develop, and where did the connections between Wales, Roman Britain, ancient Greece, and biblical narratives arise?

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Yes,but the fact that a woman inherits an X from her mother doesn't mean that her daughter inherits the SAME X.

A woman inherits one X from her mother, call it Xm,and one X from her father, call it Xf.  HER daughter will inherit one of those Xs, but it is just as likely to be Xf (from the grandafther) as Xm (from the grandmother).

Conversely, the genetic line for men is much easier to trace. A man inherits an X from his mother and a Y from his father, who MUST have inherited his Y from his father and so on. So, barring mutations, the male line can be traced/confirmed by the Y chromosome.

Conversely, the straight female line inheritance CAN be traced  through the mitochondrial DNA, which is in the egg cell (separate from the chromosomes) and is  passed from a mother to ALL her children.

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The mtDNA, barring genetic mutation gets passed from mother to daughter from generation to generation all the way back to Eve.

Answer 4

This already exists at FamilySearch. When I first added my known ancestors I ended up with a tree that went all the way back to Adam. Of course, not being a religious zealot or fantasist I immediately deleted links to anything undocumented to get the real tree.

Comments

This is where WikiTree's strength as a community of genealogists committed to documentation stands us in good stead.  When we create profiles, we add the sources of the information, and our standards for sources are much higher for pre-1500 profiles.  

That is why I entered this particular pedigree as a free-space profile, so that the focus can be on studying the stories and who first told them and where they came from and why they were important to the Welsh bards that sang about them, because the pedigree itself contains mythical characters including Greek gods.

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I'm taking a more worldly view given that some cultures (not necessarily Welsh) were matrilineal and so did not use father's names as family names. The Pueblo Indians, The Crow, The Iroquois, some populations in Asia and Africa would have given up their male heritage long before we could have worked them into a pedigree of people descended from Adam.  Tracing those peoples back to Eve would have been easier than tracing them back to Adam.

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Same, if you link into the Plantagenet as an example, you'll also be able to claim Adam as an ancestor. Found that going through Familysearch as well.  I think that you need to view those lineages as apocryphal, even going into some of the 900-1000 year timelines because everyone had to bolster claims to justify why they were or should hold titles.

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I apologize if I gave the impression I was trying to find a good genealogy back to Adam -- I gave that up when I was still a teenager!  What I'm trying to learn with these medieval genealogies is how they developed. Geoffrey of Monmouth with his History of Britain about 1100 and Nennius a couple of centuries before him play prominently in that process.  Geoffrey of Monmouth's material also included King Arthur, so this is all really about looking at legends that people believed at the time, and seeing how they develop from one person to the next.

Answer 5

Looking at how told stories carry history into modern life and written texts is really interesting. It makes me wonder, when in our evolution did humans start to tell stories about ancestors ? Off course we can easily see that in reality 118 generations would only bring us as far back as roughly 2700 bc. And as we have proof of Homo Sapiens going back 300.000 years, there is a somewhat big gab that needs to be filled. Forgetting about that, it is an interesting profile/project never the less and I'm looking forward to see more beef on the profile, especially about the earliest Welsh story tellers. Thanks for putting it out there. It has definitely made me curious  :o)

Comments

I personally believe once humans began burying their dead they filled their own lives with stories of the deceased...

Answer 6

https://www.oldest.org/culture/family-trees/

https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5386347&page=1

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/over-3000-years-of-humans-exaggerating-their-lineage-on-family-trees

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/medieval-early-modern-family-history/

There are many versions of Biblical genealogy coming out of various sections of the Bible.  Some versions agree while other parts diverge.  The most often explanation is that one version was Mary's line and the other Joseph's.  

Why was it important for ruling families to tie themselves to Biblical personages?  Proof for the concept of Divine Right, proof for claim to land and that meant taxation of people on that land.   In a word it gave more "power" to those in ruling classes.    It is all about rights of inheritance.  That is my opinion based on reading the links above and looking at history...

Many myths have a basis in fact.  But over the centuries the telling and retelling grew.   Take Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey, or the Norse Sagas, or the Story of King Arthur which mirrors some of the Tristan and Iseult stories.  

Look at Gilgamesh vs Noah

Humans like to think about who they are and how they fit in to the world around them.  Some of that comes from looking back at your ancestors.  The problem arises when we try to make those ancestors mesh with powerful historical figures.  That was big business back in the day... and to some extent even today.... 

When trades people started outpacing aristocracy in terms of money and therefore some power.. they often looked to legitimize their rise by pointing to illustrious ancestors to give them the rights to marry into powerful aristocratic families.  The merger of blood lines and money.  We see this over and over again.  

That is my two cents Jack.   Enjoy the links!  

Answer 7

The question of when Welsh literature was first written down and the reliability of its oral sources is addressed in this article referenced in my profile. The same answers clearly relate to the transmission of pedigrees by the same herald/bards.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Creation_of_Welsh_Literature

Answer 8

Interesting that they couple Greek mythology to the Bible by assuming that the god Saturnus/Kronos isn't the son of Uranus, but of a human named Creitius.

Answer 9

Creating a mythical pedigrees is nothing new. Writers have been doing that for years from Star Trek/Star Wars and Harry Potter to our favorite superheroes from Marvel and DC.  I've even made some for my own characters. It's usually a thing people would do when they're bored or really want to hash out a character's backstory.

Not saying this isn't interesting. It is. I just wouldn't put stock in such trees and it is cool to make one up. You would just have to make sure it IS absolutely fictional and no one takes it the wrong way. And it's definitely not a good idea to put it on Wikitree. 

I bet Eowyn would ban me if I put in a Lord of the Rings family tree. Although.....

If you really want to see some great pop culture trees, check out the ones I linked and these:

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/House_of_El

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Wayne_Family

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Parker_and_Watson_Family_Tree

There are so many more. So many....

To answer your question, Jack, these stories develop because of myths passed down from generation to generation. Before the myth of Adam, we had Zeus. And doing his family tree would be umm...*cough* complicated. Yeah, let's go with that.

The reason I put comic and other media trees in here is because that is now the modern mythology. Those stories will be passed down through time. Who knows what will happen in the future. If you want to make one, go for it. Just make sure it's private. =) 

Answer 10

I have seen only one modern pedigree back to Adam.  In an old issue (1970s?) of Chicago Magazine Dan Rottenberg (sp) wrote an extensive article on Jewish genealogy.  At the bottom of each page, in tiny subscript, he listed his 'begats'!  My neighbor at the next desk said "Who's that?"  When I told her, she said:  "Oh him.  He comes from a family of Polish rabbis.  They're the only ones who can do that."

Answer 11

Jack,

I downloaded some time ago the transcript of a lecture given by a Major Francis Jones given in December 1948. It was entitled An approach to Welsh Genealogy.

In it he makes several references to genealogies using the the Welsh patronymic "who was the son of" leading back to Roman times and to Brutus and thence (!!!) to Adam. Before dated genealogies were introduced in Wales this turned up quite regularly, apparently.

Comments

Yes, thank you, this item is now available on the internet and a link was provided by "Anonymous Jones" above.  This article is extremely helpful and I have cited it extensively as I've updated the free space page!

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Yes Jack, AJ linked to the Francis Jones article I uploaded to my Perrott Family in Wales page on archive.org. There are other related papers on there which may  be of interest to you including one by Bartrum.https://archive.org/details/@perrott_family_of_wales 

Some other references to articles by Francis Jones in the NLW plus a variety of online papers discussing the sources of early pedigrees are also linked to this section of my profile: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rees-1371#Family_Origins_in_Wales

Good hunting!

Answer 12

Jack, you can add me to your growing list of respondents who've seen their lineage traced back to Adam on FamilySearch.

I, like you, took a stab at tracing my genealogy from Adam down towards myself, when I became more interested in genealogy than I ever had been before, which was a couple years ago.

Below is a link to the web page that I created based on that research.

After creating it, I started working my way from myself toward Adam, trying to find sources to see how far back I could really go. I threw in the towel when I got to Elizabeth Claypool-366 (1567 - 1639). After diligent research, I have come to the conclusion that no one knows who her parents were.

http://www.achristmascarol.us/Ancestry-Adam2WilliamMortensenVaughan.htm

Comments

William, I'm sorry you actually tried this as an adult, because if you're trying to do serious genealogy, neither you nor anyone else will ever get back to Adam.  You probably will not get back to the year 1, because we are told that it is unlikely anyone can have a documented genealogy going back much earlier than Charlemagne.  Yes, we have documented people before that, but we don't have documented lines of descent tying them to people we ourselves are tied with!

My post was about finding out how medieval pedigrees that went back to Adam came to be.  And it appears that a big explanation to that is a monk named Geoffrey of Monmouth in about the year 1100, who wrote up a history of England that included some wonderful legends, like how Brutus, grandson of a man who lost the Trojan war, founded London.  Geoffrey of Monmouth also wrote about King Arthur.  I don't doubt that he believed that King Arthur actually lived, but he didn't have our standards for identifying reliable sources for our material!

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I'm glad I had better things to do with my time when I was younger.