Genealogy Madness

I took a break from genealogy research during the past year and tried to digest what I had found.

Having traced back my roots to Fredrick Frey, who was born in Switzerland about 1600, I got to

wondering, what if I were to put on a Frey family reunion for all of Fredrick’s descendants? Think

of all the cousins I would get to meet for the first time. Fredrick was my grandfather 12

generations removed.

As we all know, each of us has two parents, four grandparents and eight great-grandparents.

This is fact. I continued to count back 12 generations and came to the conclusion that I had

4096 grandparents of Fredrick’s era. I used a calculator in case you were wondering. I am of

course eternally grateful to each and every one of them, for if even one of them had failed in their

reproductive efforts, I would not be here today.

Fredrick is the only grandparent twelve generations removed that I have been able to find.

If anyone has information on any of the other 4095, please let me know.

I began to wonder, how many cousins do I have if I count all of Fredrick Frey’s descendants?

I assumed that each descendant had four children who survived on to adulthood. Four might

sound like a lot of children for one family, but you must remember that it has only been in the

past generation or two that humans stopped reproducing like gerbils. My great-great-grandfather,

Reverend James Kenny, had two wives and eleven children. A great-great-grandmother, Rebecca

Heusted, had four children, then remarried when her husband died and had seven more. I am

sure that four children per family is a very conservative estimate.

If Fredrick Frey and each of his descendants had only four children, that would mean the total

number of cousins of my generation would be 16,777,216. I had to use an Excel spreadsheet to

come up with that number. If I invited all of them and each attendee brought along a spouse and

two children, somehow I would have to find space for about 67,000,000 people. Mieko has already

told me very firmly that she is not interested in hosting my family reunion. And if each family

brought only one pet and stayed for three days, I calculated that as a good host I would have to

provide about 25,000 tons of pet food.

I have come to the conclusion that my genealogy research has gotten a bit out of hand.