I recently read an article through https://researchoutreach.org/articles/charlemagne-obama-unifying-ancestries-western-european-genealogy/ Moore, R, (2024) From Charlemagne to Obama: Unifying ancestries and Western European genealogy, Research Outreach, 139.
which looks at research done by Data scientist Reagan W Moore, emeritus professor at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
Moore has compiled a research genealogy of the Western world, adding 50 person references to his database every night for 30 years. He now has records for more than 347,000 people.
Moore developed metrics to evaluate significant details, such as data consistency, correctness, closure, connectivity, coherence, and completeness. The data were subsequently analysed using the freely available genealogy analysis software tool, CoreGen3.
He has published his research in his latest book, Trustworthy communications and complete genealogies: Unifying ancestries for a genealogical history of the modern world. Unfortunately out of my budget - even the Kindle version.
The article states "Moore argues that there is a root person to whom all members of a national community should be able to find their cousin relationship, and that every national community has a shared genealogy or ‘unifying ancestry’. Moore believes that if we can identify a unifying ancestry for Western Europeans, we can start building a genealogical history of the modern world."
"Moore explores these using the example of the ancestry of Prince George of the United Kingdom. He finds that for someone born in the 20th century, the average year they connect to Prince George’s ancestors is 1622. Prince George’s unifying ancestry includes 56,324 persons from the noble houses of Europe, and someone wanting to connect to such a genealogy would typically have to trace their ancestry back about 12 generations."
"Moore’s extensive analysis confirms his prediction that within 55 generations, ‘progenitors can be found that are ancestors of all persons of Western European descent alive today’."
I think Wikitree is a great tool for personal research joining up with unifying ancestry.
