Adam's Genealogy

I have the opposite reaction to the number - I find it amazing that we can document the thread linking 5000+ people to Adam. Documentation of the line is only weakly connected to whether or not the human race is in fact descended from Adam and Eve.

Personally, I was very interested to see that my documented connection to Adam (58 generations) ran through Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology.... there's obviously lots of room for debate on how good the documentation is!

Hi Harald,
It truly is amazing! I believe we are all related to each other and of course Adam. As for the accuracy, who knows. I still think it's cool to see what we can find. I did connect back to Adam too but my generations were more like 110 or so. Sure there is weak documentation, but we must remember that written documentation was destroyed by weak rulers to obscure lineage as in Spain. Some records were oral tradition kept like the Celtic tribes, Gauls, and Picts. Etruscan's had written language that is so far not been translated. 6 gold plates bound by rings were found in Bulgaria written in this language in 2003. Let's keep putting our heads and looking for more answers. They will come eventually. When I was 15, I had a genealogy chart with a single strand reaching back 12 generations. The information I have found today (thanks to all of you) was unimaginable then. Thank you, your cousin, Dez

Dear Harold,

At least you have an origin in Adam... according to this thread I don't so I have no idea where I or anyone in my entire lineage came from... perhaps another planet. I'm not trying to be facetious but it really boils down to the fact that we are ALL God's creations and if the Adam and Eve homily is true then we are all descended from them and all brothers and sisters in God are we not?

One thread shows Abraham (-1948 to -1625) is my 74th great grandfather. Add missing generations and those between Adam and Abraham, well, who knows.
Have a great day everyone!

I'm completely disregarding the facts that the phrase "only 5000+ of humanity are related to Adam" is grammatically incorrect and that "5000+" is exactly sufficient as to include all 7 billion people who have ever been alive, just as you say it should.

Who are you even talking to? There are hundreds of Geni members actively working on the tree. Some members connected to Adam didn't even find that connection themselves--another Geni member did. The fact that you do not have sufficient information to link your tree all the way back to Adam is not a reason to get upset. You're more than welcome to do the research necessary to find that link and implement it yourself. That's what collaboration is all about.

@Harald -- Regarding genealogies running through Norse gods, or Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc. Most if not all Pagan religious systems were based on ancestor worship. Supposedly the religious priest communicated with the "spirit" of the dead ancestor, who in life, was a real person, but who after death, eventually were elevated to the level of a "god" by religious adherents. A similar practice is around in modern times in the followers of Spiritualism with their seances, or in the practice of New Age adherents who supposedly "channel" the messages from dead gurus. Thus in ancient times, Odin, Thor, Freya, etc. were in reality flesh and blood ancestors of the Norse race of people, and were just as human as you and me, and elevated after death to the level of "gods". In Egyptian culture, the reigning Pharaoh was considered a "god" even in life.

An excellent source of information on the subject is the book "The Two Babylons" by Alexander Hislop, first published in 1853, and available now on the internet in pdf format. For instance, much of the Greco-Roman religious mythology was actually based on the life of Nimrod and his wife Semiramis. The Biblical record of Nimrod is briefly stated in the book of Genesis:

Gen 10:8 Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first to be a mighty man on the earth.
Gen 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.
Gen 10:10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar [in Babylonia].
Gen 10:11 Out of the land he [Nimrod] went forth into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah,
Gen 10:12 And Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah; all these [suburbs combined to form] the great city.

Extra-Biblical historical sources site Nimrod as the founder of several of the ancient "Mystery Religions", passed down through various cultures to the Greeks. Hence, Zeus, Hera, and the other "gods" in the Greek pantheon were in reality members of Nimrod's family, elevated by their descendants to the level of deities.

Desiree, can you please send me a mesage with the LINK to the relevant Abraham, and I'll try fixing it! I have noticed that some recent merges in these lines have messed up some lines! and shortened them WAY too much.

A more realistic estimate regarding the number of generations since Adam, would be about 150!

Adam has 5000+ listed descendants before the tree even hits the Gregorian year of 1! Most of those straight out of the Bible itself. I already explained the complete lack of meaning of the 5000+ number in the other discussion, dedicated to this project of mine: That is merging ALL of the 200+ (and counting) copies of the biblical tree on Geni into one. So of you know of any such trees feel free to send me links to them, and I'll get cracking.

Eve, if you have those European Royalty in your tree, I'll be happy to help get you connected into the "main" copies of these lines in the big-tree, which would then show your lineage all the way to Adam. While not active in those parts of the tree, I do know the "power-users" that are.

Hi Shmuel! My mother was always more into genealogy than my dad and she is the one who used to tell me our lineage (Hungarian) goes goes back to royals and aristocrats of very early days. Unfortunately I don't know of any way to trace these because my mother passed away in mid January and the information died with her I think. No one else in the family seems to know anything about our ancestors unfortunately. If I do hear of anything from overseas relatives I will certainly contact you for help in establishing the connection. Thank you for your offer.

I have the complete GED from Adam to present day - the entire descent through the Davinic line - direct is approx. 360,000 profiles - this is just the direct ancestors to myself. All is historically and legally documented, many collections of work adding to my research was gifted to me by World acclaimed scientist, historians and genealogist. It is not a myth -

Sorry, I am late joining this discussion. When I opened my tree the other day, I find that it now includes Greek Gods and Titans. WTF????
I for one, do not want my tree connected to some Biblical, Mythological, or other Fantasy characters. Or maybe we should include the belief systems of Druids, Wicca, Satanists and Scientology also. If that is to be the accepted practice, then why not include Superman (Kal-El) and his family from Krypton??? Just how ridiculous do you want to get?
It was my impression that this is a serious genealogy site, why is this nonsense being tolerated?

If your interested in researching this topic and helping with documentation and corrections. You should consider joining the Biblical Tree project.
http://www.geni.com/projects/Biblical-Tree

I am only interested in deleting the mythological connections from my tree. This includes all the imaginary characters from the bible as well as other religions and childrens stories.

Kerry, my message was not directed to you. All genealogy is based on historical record. Biblical texts are a historical record. Just because you don't believe the religious faith around those documents, does not change it's historical and recorded ancestry. As for completely fictional characters (like Superman), see the project http://www.geni.com/projects/Fake-or-Pretend-Profiles-on-geni-com.

Kerry,
welcome to the human race. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. This big-tree here on Geni has included Adam & Eve for at least 4 years. No idea when you joined it.

Historical vs. Hysterical
Any "historic" document should be based in reality, not a belief system. I am perfectly content to allow anyone to build any tree with any characters they wish, but I object when it suddenly appears in MY tree.
I have not been here long, but I have spent some valuable time researching and verifying the accuracy of my tree. I have shared this with friends and family and when they see fictional characters like the greek gods in my tree, I start to lose my credibility. Simply because a story has been recorded for a long time does not make it a credible historic document,. If that were the case, then we would accept the story of Beowulf as depicting actual events. And even if actual people are included it does not mean the whole cast of characters is real as well. I suppose a couple of thousand years from now, folks will think Bart Simpson was a real person and will include him as an ancestor. Eat my shorts.

Hello Kerry!!! I have to agree with you... totally!!!

Eve,
Thank you for your words of support. I hope I did not offend anyone with my little diatribe. Sometimes, I can seem rather harsh with my criticism. My intent was to blend a bit of humor into an honest critique of this issue.

I agree something is fracked up here-- several things-- but I'm concerned that Adam is being shown as my 46th great grandfather.

There must be quite a few problems here. That's not enough generations. Tiberius is marked as his 14th grandson, I think. He was born around 10 BC? It seems we have a skip from some 2500 BC members to 1000 BC members that are not biblical. That can't be right.
Ah, well, we'll work on it.

Kerry, it's our tree (belongs to all of us), not your tree.

All experience shows that people WILL upload and add stuff that is totally based on legendary sources, and sometimes complete works of fiction, to Geni. So the choice is not between having it and not having it, it's between fighting an eternal battle to delete information and tidying up the information so that it reflects what the sources in fact say.

I know that I don't believe that the Norwegian 9h century king Harald Hårfagre was a descendant in the 69th generation of Adam, despite the fact that I know of a manuscript dated 1387 that claims it (http://www.heimskringla.no/wiki/Hversu_Noregr_bygg%C3%B0ist) - but I find that maintaining this information in Geni as the sources give it makes more sense to me than deleting the hundreds of copies of that info that have been inserted and fighting with the hundreds of people who will feel that I've deleted stuf from "their" family tree.

That's my reasoning. Your mileage may vary.

Harald,
I appreciate your sentiments and in no way wish to cause hard feelings to anyone here. I understand that there is such a thing as "the big tree", but when I log on to GENI, there is a menu choice that clearly says "MY TREE". I cannot imagine that I am the only one that has that. It is great and wonderful that we can link our trees and collaborate, etc.; I have no problem with that. But, it would be nice if I could edit my own tree to rid myself of those pesky fairy tale characters without having to prune a whole branch.
Thanks for listening.

Kerry,
I'm curious as to how you would define the term "credible historic document" that somehow manages to include, for example 18th century parish records and not, for example the Bible.

Parish records were most likely written by a barely literate clerk, in illegible handwriting with mistakes being common, and who could easily be influenced to "cover up" various familial "indiscretions" (or even did so on their own initiative, to protect the innocent [child]).

On the other hand, the Bible as a *document*, has over the centuries, been meticulously maintained by comparing manuscripts, even peer reviewed by many scholars, to ensure document integrity. We have partial copies of the bible, some being 2000 years old. Guess what! They are the same, with few exceptions.

Genealogy is an art, of the humanities, NOT a science, definitely not a hard science. Even History itself is not a science, being too subjective. More than anything Genealogy is about people and the "stories" that they tell about their "family traditions"... Genealogy, like history, is written "by the winner", to suite ourselves.

There are no "hard facts" in Genealogy. While you probably could spend a small fortune to "prove" that in fact your parents are who you were told they are, this too is only with a "high level" of certainty.

Schmuel,

Thank you for continuing this discourse. It is really interesting and enjoyable for me. I truly hope you are in no way offended by my comments. That being said.....

I know of many sciences with the suffix "logy", but I know of no arts with that suffix.

I will never maintain that any record is absolutely accurate and has no possibility of being false, but I do maintain it is possible to assign degrees of validity to various sources. In keeping with that stance, I am always willing to let go of my outdated beliefs and theories when confronted with more substantial evidence. Most historians that I have met, acknowlege the bias which is written into historical records, but they also strive to go beyond that and uncover the truth.

If, as you suggest, the Bible is an accurate record of genealogical information then I would think everything in the Bible would have to be considered accurate depictions of actual events, including the creation story, the flood, the tower of Babel, the exodus, Giants, etc.

As "history," the Bible is unique. In First Kings 16:6,8 the king of Israel, Baasha, dies, replaced by his son Elah during the 26th year of Asa's (King of Judah) reign. But in Second Chronicles l6:1 we read that Baasha, king of Israel, goes against Judah during Asa's 36th year.
A King dies, is buried, his son becomes King, but after a decade, the dead king leads a military adventure!
In mainstream historical chronicles, dead kings stay dead, but in the Bible when a king dies, he's merely planning to pick a fight!
In Genesis 9:3: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat" for Noah. But Deuteronomy (14:7-21) later gives a list of animals, birds and fish that must not be eaten.
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac (Gen.16:15 & 21:3) but Isaac was Abraham's "only" son? (Gen. 22:2,12 & Heb. 11:17).
In Exodus 33:20, says God, "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall be no man see me and live." God must have been mistaken, or changed: For in Genesis 32:30 Jacob sees God "face to face" and lives. The same for Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and 70 elders, who saw God, and ate and drank with him (Exodus 24:9-11). But not so, says John 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time."
Matthew 1 and Luke 3 give two very different genealogies for Joseph, Mary's husband; which one should we accept? And then, what do we do about the other?

These contradictions barely scratch the surface. Are we allowed to just pick and choose what parts to accept as accurate? Can we do that with other historical documents also? Would it be acceptable to believe WWII was real but the Holocaust was not?

I think the veracity of an entire document must be taken into account before we can accept without question the individual parts of which it is made.

Though the integrity of the Bible has been maintained, so has the integrity of the "Odessy" since it was cannonized about 530 BC. The Bible was not cannonized until nearly 800 years later. Maintaining document integrity is merely sticking to the cannon; it does nothing to validate the accuracy of depicted events.

Please don't take any of what I say here as a condemnation of any religious belief. I wholly support the freedom of all religions and the freedom to accept none.

You are correct to state the mistakes and cover ups of the clerks keeping the parish records cast doubts to their usefulness as historic documents, but whereas the motivations of those clerks is a matter of speculation, the motivations of the authors of the Bible (and other religious texts) is not. We know their intent was to sustain a belief system. In degrees of credibility, I give the edge to the parish clerks, until I learn otherwise.

When my boss asks me how I arrived at a particular solution to an assignment, he will not accept an answer that involves supernatural intervention. Likewise, when I attempt to document my family tree, I do not wish to be assailed with profiles of the greek gods, titans or other supernatural entities.
I only seek a way to exclude those profiles from my tree while allowing others to fulfill whatever fantasies they have about their lineage.

Again, thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to express myself. I will continue my efforts with my small piece of the tree, and hope you will continue your much needed contribution to this vast project.

Kerry

Sorry I misspelled your name. Forgive me.

When Geni started, it seems that the concept of "my tree" was quite real - separated trees were the rule, and integrated trees were the exception.

That changed quite dramatically a few years ago, when the "Big Tree" started to emerge (before my time; others have been here longer). Geni has officially changed its mission to creating and maintaining "the big tree". Certain elements of the Geni UI still refer to separate trees; I think that's a mistake that Geni should correct.

Some parts make sense if you think of "my tree" as your own relatives unto the fourth generation (your "family context"). But I smile a bit every time I navigate through the old Vikings that are here as a result of hundreds of people's trees merged, and see "Harald Alvestrand's tree" - it's just not true any more, and shouldn't show up like that.

Thanks for your enthusiasm, and let's hope we can all enjoy Geni together!

Kerry,
I'm not saying the Bible is a valid *historical* document. It was never intended to be. Nor is it a proper genealogical record, as it often takes various liberties such as using "son" when it refers to "descendant", i.e. skipping generations, or calling a nephew "son". But most often, the commentaries DO make note of these. That said, it IS a traditional source of "genealogical information", and as Harald explains, we try and keep this tree as close as possible to those records. I can't vouch for the Christian Bible, let alone the KJV with its terrible mistranslation, but the Jewish Bible was canonized long before 300 CE. The genealogies of Jesus are both obviously bogus, as their own lengths indicate. One is MUCH to short and the other much too long, with average generations lengths being about 40 and 16 years respectively, and the genealogy in Luke being irrelevant to any claim to the Throne of David. I know the Christians have spent centuries explaining these issues away, but that's no issue to me. As such, I myself DO maintain these two lines, *as listed* in this tree.

Many of the medieval connections TO the Biblical tree are complete fantasy, created by two-bit rulers (most of Europe at the time) to glorify themselves, so where would you cut your tree off from the "main" one?

As one of the "old-timers", I disagree with Harald, the goal pretty much from the start was to create "one tree". Perhaps Geni wasn't always the clearest about this, and the tools certainly somewhat lagged behind the desire, but Geni staff have been encouraging our merge efforts pretty much from day-1 that such merges were even possible.

The only place that *I* can find that refers to "My Tree" is in the tree-view itself. I suppose they could drop the word "My" but then this link DOES take me to the tree immediately around myself, so...

You can't imagine how often my name gets mispelled in that exact way. Not sure what in English writing habits prompts it, but whatever. My own great-grandmother never really got it eight. So I'm used to it. :-)

Harald: About Geni's idea of a world tree:

"Our mission is to solve the problem of genealogy (the question of how everyone is related) by creating a family tree of the whole world." – Geni CEO David Sacks, January 12, 2007, days before Geni launched to the public.

http://www.geni.com/blog/building-our-shared-family-tree/

The mythological profiles, if you think about Geni's mission statement, actually are the ones that should be most valued, as they indeed claim that everyone is related. XD

The fact that the Bible contradicts in not a newsflash. It's actually amazing that a document that originated in oral history and was written over who knows how many years contradicts itself as little as it does. I don't know why people take those contradictions so seriously and decide that it invalidates one of the first documents that sought to preserve the history of a people (although through quite a slanted point of view, but there is no such thing as objectivity). And I have no religious interest in this document whatsoever, but I find it to be a fascinating narrative well worth study. With the contradictions Kerry so painstakingly quoted, I see Kerry does as well.

Though I have found the US census to be hilariously unreliable, with Native American ancestors being on a long page of all white people when it is convenient for the community (voting precincts), and being counted as mulatto at other times. Sometimes, whole pages of people are marked as having been born in the state in which they live, with their parents having been born there as well (in communities where this is unlikely). Sometimes, people are marked as being able to read and write, and not other times. Different birth years are figured. If one wants to talk about unreliability, turn to the famed, ahead-of-their-time, 1850+ US census records.

I can think of quite a few humanities subjects that appear with the word -logy at the end. After all, what is theology? Etymology? Eschatology?
Ontology? Epistemology? All it means is "the study of." Actually, I think the real problem with our society is that we think there is some sort of hard and fast line between "SCIENCE" and its binary "humanities," and that, of course, the humanities are useless, not valid, and a waste of time. The two actually blend quite well together. I have hope that these archaic Enlightenment beliefs will one day fade.

I don't understand how Kerry is so easily getting to mythological profiles in the tree. I hardly remember they are there until someone mentions them. You really have to go seek them out. I think if you wanted to break your tree away from them, you'd just have to not connect to profiles with no sources that you personally consider invalid. That would probably stop you around 1500, but honestly, beyond that, there aren't many records that don't have an obvious motivation, so that's probably about right.

Very well said, Faith.

Just as an amusement about "hard science." I'm paraphrasing from memory here.

A few months ago a genetics team reported that they have proven a human mutation in the lung capacity of Tibetans, explaining why they don't have "height sickness" living up there in the Sky Kingdom on top of the Himalayas, and estimating the event took place 3,000 years ago, give or take.

The linguists, genealogists, anthropologists, archeologists, and other historian types said how is this possible when the record seems to indicate Tibetans came from (other parts of China) some (whatever date it was ... 16,000 years?).

Geneticists said, oh sure, that's no contraction. Our plus or minus factor is 100,000 years. :)

Faith,
the "problem" with wanting to "break your tree away from them", is that by the time you reach 1500, you are deep in the SHARED part of the historical tree. These profiles have *hundreds* of managers, and literally millions of descendants. People would get RATHER annoyed if you start breaking connections...

In fact, it is pretty much impossible to have an ancestor, even as recently as 1800, who is NOT already the ancestor of somebody else on Geni. Records for only so many people exist past a certain point in the past.

Even if AT PRESENT, you have your own copy of these lines, these extra copies, will eventually, probably sooner than later, get merged into the main copy. That IS the whole point of having ONE tree, with one single profile for each historical profile. Last year there were over 200 copies of Charlemagne. Now there are only FIVE! Soon there will only be one. [So PLEASE don't go and add more copies. You'll only annoy the PTB].