IDTG

Typically, insinuations of close relatives marrying each other and having children are reserved for the Deep South of the USA, royalty, etc.

What most people don’t realize is that every single one of us have that in our past. Some of us may have it in more recent generations while other in more distant one but, we all come from some sort of incestuous relationship.

Why do I say that? Simple, look at the numbers:

• According to the US Census Bureau’s Historical Estimates of World Population, this was the approximate world population at various points in time in the past:
  • 350-374M people in 1400AD
  • 254-345M people in 1000AD
  • 170-400M people in 1AD
• Approximate number of generations back to get to the same years above:
  • 25 generations to 1400AD
  • 32 generations to 1000AD
  • 60 generations to 1AD

Those who are math inclined may have already figured it out but, let’s keep on going. Every generation doubles the number of ancestors and can be expressed as a power of 2. In other words, you are generation 0 and 2⁰ = 1. You have only two parents (biological) and they are generation 1, therefore 2¹ = 2. You only have 4 grandparents and they are generation 2, therefore 2² = 4. Your great-grandparents are generation 3 or 2³ and so on and so forth.

So, let’s see how many ancestors we’ve got after 25 generations in 1400AD: that would be 2²⁵ = 33,554,432.

Let’s go back a few more centuries to the beginning of the second millennium or the year 1000AD. We would be at 2³² = 4,294,967,296. That’s more than 4 BILLION people! More than 12 times the estimate population of the world of the era!

So, either our ancestors mated with non-humans or there was just a little too much family love.

Another interesting conclusion is that there’s a pretty good chance that you and your spouse/significant other are distant cousins!

Remember all this next time you have the urge to call someone else an “inbreeder” because we’re all inbred!

It was just announced the other day that the XXIX International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences will be held in Stuttgart, Germany in September 10-17, 2010.

The site for the Congress is still under construction and registration is not yet open but, you can visit it here: http://www.congress2010.info/

The Royal Academy of History of Spain (Real Academia de la Historia) has created a database collection of the biographies of thousands of historical persons.

The database is the outcome of the project Diccionario Biográfico Español or “Spanish Biographical Dictionary” of the Royal Academy and for the creation of the Center of Biographical Studies. The project intends to cover persons from all regions of the world that were under the Spanish Crown: the Iberian peninsula, the Americas, the Low Countries, the Philippines, etc.

At present, the database contains the data of over 40,000 persons and can be accessed via the link: http://www.rah.es/cdeb.htm

Cross of Alcántara

Over the past 2+ years I have been doing a lot of genealogical research. Though I took a sabbatical for a few months, I restarted me research and have spent hours upon hours on it.

Most of the time, I’ve spent it researching my mother’s side of the family as that part is very well documented while, on the other hand, the Greek side is not at all. Some day I may get lucky though…

In my latest foray into the murky past of my family, I made a very interesting discovery. I am a descendant of Ruy Vásquez (de Quiroga) also known as Rodrigo Vázquez who was the Grand Master of the Order of Alcántara from 1312-1318.

The Order of Alcántara was created in the during the Reconquista in the Kingdom of León and originally it’s knights were exclusively from the region of Extremadura. It was one of the various Military Orders created at the time to fight against the Muslim Moors of the south of the Iberian peninsula. For a while during it’s early years it was part of the Order of Calatrava, in around 1218 it broke away and became known as the Order of San Julián de Pereiro with the approval of Alfonso IX of León and based in the city of Alcántara. It wasn’t until later that century (about 1253) that the Grand Masters of the Order started calling themselves the “Grand Masters of Alcántara”.

The descent is through Milla Vásquez de Quiroga, the daughter of Ruy Vásquez de Quiroga and his wife Teresa Gómez de Losada

1. Milla Vásquez de Quiroga m. Gonzalo Rodríguez de Valcarcé
2. García Rodríguez de Quiroga (Valcarcé) m. Marí Álvarez de Losada
3. Juan de Losada m. Violante de Ribadeneira Pardo
   (interestingly enough, his brother Rodrigo de Quiroga was a commander of the Order of Santiago)
4. Rodrigo de Quiroga m. Inés de Escobar
   (this Rodrigo de Quiroga is not to be confused with his paternal 2^nd degree cousin Rodrigo de Quiroga, Royal Governor of Chile)
5. Juan de Losada m. Constanza de Villasur
6. Bernardino de Quiroga (y Villasur de Balboa) m. Juana de Miranda (y Rueda)
7. Constanza Quiroga m. Antonio Chacón (y Sánchez de Morales)
8. Luisa Chacón y Quiroga m. Martín Hurtado de Mendoza
9. Leonor Hurtado de Mendoza m. Francisco Riveros Figueroa
10. Josefa de Riveros (y Hurtado de Mendoza) m. Rodrigo de Aránguiz (y Alvarado)
11. Catalina de Aránguiz (y Riveros) m. Juan Madrazo de Santelices
12. María Mercedes Santelices Aránguiz m. Manuel José de Vial Xarabeitía
13. María del Carmen Vial m. José María Prieto Sotomayor
14. María del Carmen Prieto Vial m. Manuel José Bulnes Quevedo
15. Manuel Bulnes Prieto m. Enriqueta Pinto Garmendia
16. Elena Bulnes Pinto m. Ángel Ortúzar Montt
17. Javiera Ortúzar Bulnes m. Carlos Fernando Edwards Garriga
18. Javier Edwards Ortúzar m. Luisa Hurtado (de Mendoza) Olea
19. Eliana Edwards Hurtado m. Fernando Antonio (Martínez de) Vergara Ortúzar
20. Maria Eliana Vergara Edwards m. Evangelos Kimon Andreou
21. Kimon Andreou (that’s yours truly)

How’s that for a blast from the past?

Now, what does this mean? Nothing more than just interesting information and that I can trace my ancestry all the way to the late 13th century.

Sources:

• Espejo, Juan Luis – Nobiliario de la Antigua Capitanía General de Chile (1967 edition)
• Morales Guiñazú, Fernando – Genealogía de los Conquistadores de Cuyo y Fundadores de Mendoza
• Retamal Favereau, Julio; Celis Atria, Carlos; y Muñoz Correa, Juan Guillermo – Familias Fundadoras de Chile, 1540-1600
• Millas, Hernán – La Sagrada Familia
• Barrios Barth, Juan E. – Algunos Extranjeros llegados a La Serena y su jurisdicción durante el siglo pasado
• Birth, marriage & death certificates of the Government of Chile
• de la Cuadra Gormaz, Guillermo – Familias chilenas (Origen y desarrollo de las familias chilenas)
• Medina, José Toribio – Diccionario biográfico colonial de Chile

While looking for some genealogy books I need for my research, I came upon an amazingly valuable resource for anyone doing research in Chile that’s absolutely free!

It appears that the government of Chile has created a website that contains hundreds, if not thousands, of scanned images, articles, books, etc. from sources from the early 1900′s and older.  It is a veritable treasure trove for anyone doing research.

In my case, I had been unable to find many books that I had leads that may contain information on my family and had resigned to the fact that I had to plan a trip to Washington, DC to visit the Library of Congress as that was the only place I could find them. On the rare occassion that I did find a book for sale, its price would range from the mid $100′s (USD) all the way to close to $1,000!

The name of the site is called Memoria Chilena and is located at this address: http://www.memoriachilena.cl/

It has a very powerful search engine that can search by either title, author, publisher or any other keyword. The results returned will include, perhaps, an information page a list of books, articles and photographs.

All books or articles are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format to be read electronically on your computer, PDA, etc.

One of my favorite features is the e-Libros section whereby there is a list of recommended resources for researchers and enthusiasts alike. What’s great about the list is that it changes monthly which means that you may find a gem there that you never knew existed.

Any researcher of genealogy or history will be well served to use this most excellent resource.

Just be aware that you will not be able to find any of the books or articles published after around the 1930′s. This means that one of the books I’m looking for “El linaje de Vial” by Raúl Díaz Vial, published in 1960 is still to be found by me outside of the Library of Congress… If anyone knows where to find it, please let me know!