10,754 different paths were found between Arnulf ARNULFING and JIm

Question

"10,754 different paths were found between Arnulf ARNULFING-1 and JIm WALKER-2526

Could someone please tell me the significance / helpfulness of this HUGE number of paths? 

Ie: VS say, "5 different direct paths".

Another example - 

8,216 different paths were found between Charlemagne Karolus Magnus Carolingian and JIm WALKER-2526

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Carolingian-77

Is this explained somewhere so I do not have to bother anyone about this please?

Thank you.

Regards,

Jim Walker-2526

Comments

I apparently have 76,708 paths to Charlemagne, the shortest being 33 generations.

The first line has more than half the generations uncertain.

Glancing through a few profiles the sources were all too frequently just internet pedigrees. Although, occasionally there are some decent sources such as Richardson or Cawley.

Amusing? Perhaps.

Worth much of my time? Not really.

Answer 1

I have heard it commented that if you have European ancestry at all, you're related somehow to Charlemagne. That number means that someone was related somehow to the person they married/had a child with (a.k.a. endogamy or pedigree collapse). You're seeing that huge number of ancestors who married relatives because of the fact that you're looking so far back in time, and that Charlemagne had so many children in a family well-placed to have surviving branches.

When it's for someone relatively recent or less "impactful" than great-grandad Charlie there, the different paths can be interesting to switch between and see how the families blend. When it's such a large number, that becomes a little harder to decipher.

Comments

Thank you!

Answer 2

A large number of these paths are fake paths created by undocumented (and possibly false) genealogies uploaded by GEDCOM from popular genelogies during WikiTree's "wild west" days when anything went.  Now we're in the era of clean-up.

Paths with uncertain ancestry such as you've found should be high priority for clean-up.  If you're pre-1500 certified, they should be high on your "public service" list of profiles to document, and connections to correct, even though they may turn out unrelated to you.  If you're not pre-1500 certified, you can still offer useful comments on their profiles with additional sources which may shed light on the person and the person's parents, spouse(s) and children.

The end result we should all hope for is that when WikiTree offers us a path to a possible ancestor, all of the links will be marked "confirmed".  But there is a ways to go yet!

Comments

Awesome! Thank you!