We Are All Descendants of Charlemagne

Here is very interesting article I was lucky enough to find years ago. The credit goes to its author, Jack Lee.

As I was researching my Lee ancestral line back into the middle ages, I was excited to find that I am apparently a direct descendant of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. As I dug deeper, I found at least three separate lines of descent from him to me, and I saw more and more genealogical sites on the Web that claimed similar descent. This started me thinking about how likely it is that I, or anyone for that matter, might be descended from a particular person that far back. As a mathematician (though not by any means a probabilist), I figured I ought to be able to come up with at least a rough estimate of the probability. My conclusion, which was surprising (to me at least), is that

there is virtually no chance that anyone of European ancestry is not directly descended from Charlemagne.

Here’s my reasoning. Charlemagne was approximately 40 generations back from the present day. Each person has 2 parents, 22 = 4 grandparents, 23 = 8 great-grandparents, … and 240, or approximately 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion), 40th-generation ancestors, which means half a trillion male ancestors. Of course, since the entire male population of Europe at the time of Charlemagne was only about 15 million, these half trillion ancestors cannot all have been different men — obviously there has been a lot of cross-breeding, and many of our ancestral lines cross and re-cross, eventually ending up at the same person. Let’s assume that each of my 40th-generation male ancestors is a randomly-chosen man from eighth-century Europe (this is not really valid, but more on that below). Choosing any one such ancestor, say my father’s father’s … father’s father, the probability that that particular person is Charlemagne is one in 15 million. Pretty small. To put it another way, the probability that any particular ancestor was not Charlemagne is 1 – 1/15,000,000, or approximately 0.999999933
But now consider the probability that none of my 40th-generation ancestors is Charlemagne. For that to happen, every one of my half trillion male ancestors has to not be Charlemagne, which would be an amazing coincidence. To see how amazing, let’s compute the probability. Assuming all of these various not-being-Charlemagne occurrences are independent of each other (more on this below), the laws of probability state that the probability of all these events occurring simultaneously is obtained by multiplying together their individual probabilities:
(0.999999933)•(0.999999933)•…•(0.999999933) = (0.999999933)500,000,000,000.
This turns out to be an incredibly small number: about one chance in 1015,000. That’s a one with 15,000 zeroes after it, a number that’s too big even to display in a browser window. This is way more than the number of atoms in the universe (which is estimated to be about 1080). Therefore, if this analysis is even remotely close to correct, it’s virtually impossible that Charlemagne is not among my direct ancestors.
Of course, there are a few sources of errors in this analysis, so there are various corrections one could make that might yield a more accurate estimate. Most obviously, one’s ancestors are not in fact randomly chosen people from eighth-century Europe. For example, anyone who had no children, or no grandchildren, cannot be an ancestor of someone living now. (Charlemagne has well-documented descendants down to the present day.) More generally, wealthy people survived at a far higher rate than the rest of the population, and so were much more likely to produce descendants – thus one’s ancestors are more likely to be found among the relatively small population of royalty and nobility, including Charlemagne. You might think of other, smaller, corrections, such as the fact that the probabilities of different ancestors being Charlemagne are not really independent: for example, if my father’s … father’s father was Charlemagne’s brother, then the probability that my father’s … mother’s father was Charlemagne himself is very small. And, of course, some of my ancestors came from outside of Europe. But I believe these effects cannot change the fact that the probability we’re talking about is so tiny as to be zero for all practical purposes.

(1) Charlemagne is about 40 generations back from us;
(2) Everyone has approximately a trillion 40th generation ancestors (counting them multiple times if there are multiple lines of descent, of course);
(3) The population of Europe in AD 800 was only about 30 million;
(4) Therefore, on average, if everyone in Europe at that time were equally likely to be one’s ancestor, everyone would have about 300,000 lines of descent from Charlemagne.
(5) But if anything, the probability is likely to be even higher than average for Charlemagne (or any other royal or noble), since wealthy people were more likely than average to have their children survive.

Let’s Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer!

Let’s Twist Again was released 50 years ago this month! It was written by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, and released as a single recorded by Chubby Checker, one of the biggest hit singles of 1961 reaching #2 in the UK charts and #8 in the U.S. charts. It refers to the Twist dance craze and his 1960 single “The Twist” a UK and US #1 single. The song received the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Rock ‘n Roll Recording.

Jackie Kennedy loved to Twist, and rolled back the carpets when she hosted a party. So did Audrey Hepburn:

Someone else who liked to Twist was a little Canadian girl named Shari who won the Twist contest at Cindy Schneider’s brthday party in 1963 — that’s me on the right!
makes me feel old….

Do You Know What Drowning Looks Like?

If you and your family are planning to spend some of this summer by the sea, by the pool, or perhaps even a river or lake, perhaps you should ask yourself, would you be able to spot someone in trouble in the water, in time to save their life: do you really know what drowning looks like?

Marion Vittone, a writer on maritime safety, tells a story about a former life guard, now a boat captain, who spotted a potentially fatal incident from fifty feet away. The captain jumped off his own boat, and sprinted toward a family swimming between the beach and their anchored boat: he sped past the astonished parents, to save their nine-year old daughter, who had been quietly drowning not ten feet behind her father.

Vittone, whose articles have appeared in many magazines, including Reader’s Digest, said he was not surprised when he heard this story: he knows a thing or two about drowning, having served nineteen years in the US Navy and Coast Guard, and his strongest message is “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning“.

Many of us, who have perhaps unwittingly been coached by TV dramas and cartoon films, when asked to describe a drowning person would probably say they would be thrashing their arms about wildly above their heads and making loud cries of help. But the reality is that a person who is drowning is more likely to remain quiet, unnoticeable, and sink silently.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2007, there were 3,443 fatal unintentional drownings in the US, an average of ten deaths a day, with more than 1 in 5 victims of fatal drowning being children aged 14 years and younger. Plus, for every child that drowns, four others receive emergency care for nonfatal injuries related to submersion.

Furthermore, says the CDC, many parents have watched their child drown without realizing what was happening. They did not know what the captain who saved the little girl in Vittone’s story was trained to notice and her parents were blissfully unaware of: the signs of Instinctive Drowning Response, a term coined by Dr Francesco A. Pia, a water safety expert.

Vittone and Pia wrote about the Instinctive Drowning Response, in the Fall 06 issue of On Scene, the journal of the US Coast Guard Search and Rescue. Pia says it is what people do to avoid suffocating in water: they don’t splash much, they don’t wave, and they don’t yell or call out. Quite different to what many of us might expect.

Pia and Vittone make these points about the Instinctive Drowning Response:

• In the vast majority of cases, drowning people are physiologically incapable of calling out for help because the human body is wired to give priority to the primary respiratory function, breathing, and not to speech, which is a secondary overlaid function.

• Drowning people’s mouths are not above the water long enough to enable them to exhale, draw breath and call out, they have barely time to exhale and inhale quickly before their mouths go back under the water.

• When we are drowning, our natural instinct is to press our arms outwards and downwards onto the surface of the water so we can leverage our bodies upwards to catch our breath.

• Waving arms about to draw attention is a voluntary movement: we have to stop drowning first before we can physically perform voluntary movements like waving for help, grabbing rescue equipment or moving toward a rescuer.

• While in the Drowning Response, people stay upright but they don’t perform supporting kicks, and unless rescued, they struggle on the surface of the water up to 60 seconds before they go under.

These points echo an important rule one learns in basic first aid training and life saving: the casualties that scream for attention are not the priority in the first instance, no matter how desperate their cries. You go to the silent ones first, in case they are unconscious and unbreathing, in which case they are the ones in more urgent need of life saving help.

Vittone also says parents should be aware that children playing in the water usually make a noise: when they go quiet, you should get to them quickly and find out why.

He also lists a number of signs that can help us notice when people might be drowning: their eyes are either closed or appear glassy and unfocused; their head is tilted back with the mouth open or it is low in the water with the mouth at water level; their hair covers their forehead and eyes; they are hyperventilating or gasping; they are trying to swim in one direction but getting nowhere; they try to roll on their back or their body is vertical and they are not using their legs.

There are also other things we can do to prevent accidental drowning, and in many instances, they are to do with ensuring children can’t get into the water inadvertently.

According to the CDC, most unintentional drownings of very young children in the US occur in residential swimming pools, and one of the major factors is lack of barriers and supervision.

Their records show that most of the young children who drowned in pools in 2007 were last seen indoors, had been out sight for less that 5 minutes, and were under the supervision of one or both parents at the time.

Having barriers like pool fencing can help stop children getting into the pool area, or at least delay the time it takes them to do that before the adult in charge notices they are gone.

Among older children, the dangers tend to be further away from home: for instance the percentage of American children that drown in natural water settings such as lakes, rivers and the sea goes up with age. Among those that died in boating incidents (709 deaths in 2008, most from drowning), 9 out of 10 of them were not wearing a life jacket, said the CDC.

If you are keen on swimming, boating and doing other recreational activities in natural water, it is important to be aware of local weather conditions, and how to interpret the colored flags on the beach.

Also, look out for dangerous waves and rip currents. If you are caught in one, swim parallel to the shoreline and don’t swim toward the shore until you are free of the rip current.

If boating, ensure everyone, no matter how good a swimmer or how far they are travelling, or how big the boat, wears a coast guard approved life jacket.

Alcohol is also a problem: about half of adult and adolescent deaths that occur in and around recreational water and about 1 in 5 American deaths linked to boating are associated with alcohol. Alcohol affects judgement, balance and coordination, and being in the heat and sun while under the influence affects them even more.

Whatever happens, don’t assume, if one of your crew falls overboard and they look OK that they are OK.

As Vittone reminds us, drowning does not always look like drowning: the person may look like they are casually treading water and looking up at you or the boat and there is nothing to worry about. But how do you know?

So just to be sure, get their attention and ask them, “Are you OK?” And if they say “yeah, I’m fine”, then they probably are. But if they continue to stare blankly, you may only have 30 seconds to reach them.

Manhattan Sunsets!

Every May 28 and July 12 Manhattan floods dramatically with sunlight just as the sun sets precisely on the centerline of every street. Usually, the tall buildings that line the gridded streets of New York City’s tallest borough will hide the setting sun.

This effect makes Manhattan a type of modern Stonehenge, although only aligned to about 30 degrees east of north. Were Manhattan’s road grid perfectly aligned to east and west, this effect would occur on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox, March 21 and September 21, the only two days that the sun rises and sets due east and west.

Relics

There is much confusion among those wishinbg to identify religious relics, due to the use of Latin abbreviations. I have put together a short list of the more common ones:

arca mortuaria – mortuary box, container
arca sepulerali- coffin
breviario – breviary
coronse spinse D.N.J.C. – crown of thorns of Our Lord Jesus Christ
[cravio] corporis – body
de velo – from the veil
domini nostri jesu christi, D.N.J.C. – Our Lord Jesus Christ
domo – house
ex bireto – from the biretta
ex capillus – from the hair
ex carne – from the flesh
ex cineribus – from the ashes
ex indumento – from the clothing
ex ligneo pulvere, mixto pulveri corporis, quem residuum continebat prima capsa funeralis – from the remains of the wood, mixed with the dust of the body, the residue of which was contained in the first box, [or sarcophagus]
ex ossibus – from the bones
ex praecordis – from the stomach or intestines
ex praesepis – birthplace of D.N.J.C.
ex pelle – from the skin
ex pluviali – cope [ cloak wore for Benediction ]
ex sportula – from the little basket
ex stipite affixionis – probably means “from the whipping post”
ex strato – from the covering [ blanket ]
ex tela serica quae tetigit cor – from the silk cloth which touched the heart
ex tunica – from the tunic

Now let’s move forward to the initials that follow the name to which the relic belongs:

AP. – Apostle
C. – Confessor
D. – Doctor of the Church
E. – Bishop
EV. – Evangelist
F. – Founder of Order
Lev. – Deacon
M. – Martyr
Poen. – Penitent
PP. – Pope
Reg. – King or Queen
V. – Virgin
Vid. – Widow

Old Testament vs New Testament

There are many parallels between the two. Here are just a few:

OT. Exodus 3:14 The “I AM” is God
NT. John 8:58 Jesus is the “I AM”

OT. Isaiah 43:15 The “HOLY ONE” is God
NT. Acts 3:14 Jesus is the “HOLY ONE”

OT. Isaiah 45:21 The “ONE SAVIOR” is God
NT. Acts 4:12 Jesus is the “ONE SAVIOR”

OT. Isaiah 44:6 The “KING OF ISRAEL” is God
NT. John 1:49 Jesus is “KING OF ISRAEL”

OT. Genesis. 1:1 The “ONE CREATOR” is God
NT. John 1: 3-10 Jesus is the “ONE CREATOR”

OT. Isaiah 40:11 The “ONE SHEPHERD” is God
NT. John 10:16 Jesus is the “ONE SHEPHERD”

OT. Isaiah 41:14 The “ONE REDEEMER” is God
NT. Luke 1:68 Jesus is the “ONE REDEEMER”

OT. Deuteronomy 10:17 The “LORD OF LORDS” is God
NT. Revelation 19:16 Jesus is “LORD OF LORDS”

OT. Isaiah 44:6 The “FIRST AND THE LAST” is God
NT. Revelation 22:13 Jesus is the “FIRST AND THE LAST”

OT. Isaiah 45:23 “EVERY KNEE MUST BOW” to God
NT. Philippians 2:10 “EVERY KNEE MUST BOW” to Jesus

Ten Seconds

It was 99 years ago today that the Titanic sank, and we are more fascinated by her than ever!

Something I found interesting, that shows how life can change in a blink of an eye, is this:

If the iceburg had been spotted 10 seconds earlier, there would have been time to steer the ship clear. If it had been spotted 10 seconds later, there would have been no time to turn the ship and she would have hit the iceburg head-on. This would have caused considerable damage, but she would have stayed afloat so that the passengers could be rescued.

Who says 10 seconds don’t make a difference? It really makes you think…

 

The Crown of Thorns

I was forunate to see the The Crown of Thorns, a relic at Notre Dame Catherdral in Paris a few years ago.

It has a colourful history.

St. Paulinus of Nola, writing after 409 AD, referred to “the thorns with which Our Saviour was crowned” as relics held in honour. Cassiodorus (c. 570), when commenting on Psalm lxxxvi, speaks of the Crown of Thorns among the other relics which are the glory of the earthly Jerusalem. “There”, he says, “we may behold the thorny crown, which was only set upon the head of Our Redeemer in order that all the thorns of the world might be gathered together and broken”. Gregory of Tours, in De Gloria Martyri, mentions that the thorns in the Crown still looked green. Antoninus of Piacenza (6th century) wrote that the Crown of Thorns was currently shown in the church on Mount Zion. From these fragments of evidence and others of later date (the “Pilgrimage” of the monk Bernard shows that the relic was still at Mount Zion in 870), it is likely that what purported to be the Crown of Thorns was venerated at Jerusalem from the 5th century for several hundred years.

According to Francois de Mély, the whole Crown was not transferred to Byzantium until about 1063. In any case Justinian (d. 565) is stated to have given a thorn to St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, which was long preserved at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, while the Empress Irene, in 798 or 802, sent Charlemagne several thorns which were deposited by him at Aachen. Eight of these are said to have been there at the consecration of the basilica of Aachen. Four were given to Saint-Corneille of Compiègne in 877 by Charles the Bald. One was sent to the Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan in 927, and eventually found its way to Malmesbury Abbey. Another was presented to a Spanish princess about 1160, and again another was taken to Andechs in Germany in the year 1200.

The Holy Crown of Jesus Christ was bought by Louis IX from Baldwin II. It is preserved today in a 19th century reliquary, in Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris.

Louis built the Sainte-Chapelle (completed 1248) to receive it. The relic stayed there until the French Revolution, when, after finding a home for a while in the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Concordat of 1801 restored it to the Church, and it was deposited in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. New reliquaries were provided for the relic, one commissioned by Napoleon, another, in jewelled rock crystal and more suitably Gothic, was made to the designs of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. In 2001, when the surviving treasures from the Sainte-Chapelle were exhibited at the Louvre, the chaplet was solemnly presented every Friday at Notre Dame. Pope John Paul II translated it personally to the Sainte-Chapelle during the World Youth Days.

According to M. De Mély, by the time when the crown was brought to Paris the sixty or seventy thorns had been separated from the band of rushes and were kept in a different reliquary. None of these now remain at Paris. Some small fragments of rush are also preserved … at Arras and at Lyons. With regard to the origin and character of the thorns, both tradition and existing remains suggest that they must have come from the bush botanically known as Ziziphus spina-christi, more popularly, the jujube tree. This reaches the height of fifteen or twenty feet and is found growing in abundance by the wayside around Jerusalem. The crooked branches of this shrub are armed with thorns growing in pairs, a straight spine and a curved one commonly occurring together at each point. The relic preserved in the Capella della Spina at Pisa, as well as that at Trier, which though their early history is doubtful and obscure, are among the largest in size, afford a good illustration of this peculiarity.

Not all of the reputed holy thorns are authentic. Many of the thorns were relics of the third class—objects touched to a relic of the first class, in this case some part of the crown itself. (A relic of the first class is a part of the body of a saint or, in this case, any of the objects used in the Crucifixion that carried the blood of Christ; a relic of the second class is anything known to have been touched or used by a saint; a relic of the third class is a devotional object touched to a first-class relic and, usually, formally blessed as a sacramental.) Again, even in comparatively modern times it is not always easy to trace the history of these objects of devotion, as first-class relics were often divided and any number of authentic third-class relics may exist.

The following are listed in “Gazeteer of Relics and Miraculous Images” lists the following:

Belgium: Parochial Church of Wevelgem: a portion of the Crown of Thorns
Belgium: Ghent, St. Michael’s Church: a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns
France: Notre Dame de Paris: a portion of the Crown of Thorns, now devoid of thorns, displayed the first Friday of each month and all Fridays in Lent (including Good Friday)
France: Sainte-Chapelle: a portion of the Crown of Thorns, brought to the site by Louis IX.
Germany:Cathedral of Trier: a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns
Italy: Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme: a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns
Italy: Rome, Santa Prassede: a small portion of the Crown of Thorns
Italy: Pisa, Spedali Riuniti di Santa Chiara: a Branch with Thorns from the Crown of Thorns
Italy: Naples, Santa Maria Incoronata: a fragment of the Crown of Thorns
Italy: Ariano Irpino, Cathedral: two Thorns from the Crown of Thorns
Spain: Oviedo, Cathedral: five thorns (formerly eight) from the Crown of Thorns
Spain: Barcelona, Cathedral: a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns
Spain: Seville, Iglesia de la Anunciación (Hermandad del Valle): a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns
United Kingdom: Stanbrook Abbey, Worcester: a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns
United Kingdom: Stonyhurst College, Lancashire: a Thorn from the Crown of Thorns

It was at Notre Dame that my father and I had the fortune of seeing it. Three priests held it on a velvet pillow, protected by a crystal ring in which it lay. As we reached the front of the line, we bent to kiss the relic. We were in good company; Eva Peron kissed the very same Crown of Thorns when she visited Paris as part of her Rainbow Tour:

Knock on Wood

Often we use the phrase, “Knock on wood” – and proceed to do just that: Knock on a table or a door or whatever wood is handy.

In some circles it is believed that the origin of the phrase and practice comes from the wood of the rosary. Rosaries in the old days were made of oak wood and were fingered in time of distress or trouble. Thus, holding on to, touching or rubbing the wooden rosary or its wooden crucifix when danger was near became a common way for Christians to deal with hardships and difficulties.

The practice slipped into common use as “Knock on wood.”

George Carlin on Aging

Today is my birthday, so how could I resist sharing my favourite quote from George Carlin?!

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions. “How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!” You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.

You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. “How old are you?” “I’m gonna be 16!” You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . . YOU BECOME 21. . . YEAS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED, we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed? You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away.

Before you know it, you REACH 50 . . . and your dreams are gone. But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn’t end there.

Into the 90s, you start going backwards; “I was JUST 92.” Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. “I’m 100 and a half!”