Your Descent Is My Ancestry

Back to facts, theories and opinions again. Today, Saturday 7th, the Mail featured a story about how learned scholars had discovered that Her Majesty our Queen has among her ancestors The Prophet Muhammad who died in 632 CE. The Mail claims that it is news.

It is not, this one is something I came across decades ago in a journal specialising in genealogy and pops up every now and again since. The original article had a number of ifs and buts that the regular readers would have been aware of but suggested there was a degree of probability.

There are two different but related matters here. One is the actual trace from parents via all the successive parents before over many generations to see just who is there. Life is full of surprises and many of them are not wanted. The other is demographic statistics, about which I want to keep it very short and simple.

In the parentage the theory is that what is in the records is accurate. But if any other suggestions are true then they may not be the facts. For example, was Queen Victoria the child of The Duke of Kent, or was it one of the footmen? Only DNA can tell and it is possible we will never have that.

The same applies to a number of other monarchs etc. down the ages. I have opinions about Caroline of Brunswick, for example. And many historians have suggested big ifs and buts from a number of parents of the past. Who knows and does it actually matter much?

With the Germanic kings, princes and other elites that we have especially among our Royal's they had extensive connections to the East, especially the Kingdom of Kiev. In turn these go back to strong links with the Byzantines of Constantinople who in turn transacted with Islam in war, business and women.

So a few hundred years of these connections with the rulers of parts of Islam, some of whom were descended either from the Prophet or any relations meant that descent from the Prophet and family could and did happen in the East of Europe and thence to the West.

Which brings us to the stat's. Theoretically, by the 1300's CE the number of child bearing females in the population is less than the total female ancestry of anyone in the UK and Ireland. In short there have to be others and in many cases a lot of them. Add to that the extensive North Sea and Baltic trading of the past etc. and this means that we are not Poles apart.

By the time of Prophet the potential figures are then very big. When this coincides with the growing numbers of his descendants and of his family, there you go. There are now a lot of them about one way or another, possibly most of us, perhaps almost all.

So much for the news, now back to the football, are you related to Albert Stubbins?