ALL THE WORLD AKIN.
The number of a man's ancestors (says the Popular Science Monthly), doubles in every generation aa his descent i 3 traced upward. In the first generation he reckons only two ancestors, hie father and mother. In the second generation the two are converted into four, since he had two grandfathers and two grandmothers. But each of these four had two parents, and thus in the third generation there are found to be eight ancestors— that is, eight great - grandparents. In the fourth generation the number of ancestors is sixteen; in the fifth, thirty-two; in the sixth, sixty-four; in the seventh, 128. In the tenth it has risen to 1024; in the twentieth it becomes 1.048,576 ; in the thirtieth no fewer than 1,073,741,834. To ascend no higher than the twenty-fourth generation we reach the sum of 16,777,216, which is a great deal more than all the inhabitants of Great Britain when that generation was in existence, For, if we reckon a generation at thirty-three years, twenty-four of such will carry us back 792 years, or to A.D. 1093, when William the Conqueror had been sleeping in his gravo at Caen only six years, and his son William 11, surnamed Rufus, was reigning over the land. At that time the total number of the inhabitants of England could have been little more than two millions, the amount at which it is estimated duriDg the reign of the Conqueror. It was only one-eight of a nineteenth-century man's ancestor's if the normal ratio of progression, as just shown by a simple process of arithmetic, had received no check, and if it had not been bounded by the limits of the population of the country. Since the result of the law of progression, had there been room for its expansion, would have been eight times the actual population, by so much the more is it certain that the lines of every Englishman's ancestry ran up to every man and every woman in the reign of William I. from the King and Queen downward; who left descendants in the island, and whose progeny has not died out there.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18860227.2.56.17
Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7573, 27 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)
Word Count
356ALL THE WORLD AKIN. New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7573, 27 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)
Using This Item
No known copyright (New Zealand)
To the best of the National Library of New Zealand’s knowledge, under New Zealand law, there is no copyright in this item in New Zealand.
You can copy this item, share it, and post it on a blog or website. It can be modified, remixed and built upon. It can be used commercially. If reproducing this item, it is helpful to include the source.
For further information please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Auckland Libraries and NZME.