Charlemagne decedents?

Question

Anyone here have resources that could help me trace a family name back to Charlemange? I have been unable to trace it directly from Charlemange so I was wondering if I could work backwards?

Answer 1

It's extremely expensive to do the primary research (your own snooping through records that no one else ever documented) and prove your lineage to Charlemagne. The last project I'm aware of that did so was the Catherine de Baillon research project about 8 years ago. Three extremely well-respected researchers spent several thousand dollars and several hundred hours of research to get the documents needed from the various departements of France to prove the lineage of Catherine de Baillon back to Charlemagne. It was very tedious and took them several years to locate the records, then months for the boxes to arrive and more months for them to read through everything, organize it and prove that one of their three working theses was correct.

Now if you descend from Catherine de Baillon and Jacques Miville-dit-Deschênes, you can use the Dulong research to tie into Charlemagne's lineage: http://habitant.org/baillon/index.htm

If you believe you descend from another major or minor European royal, you can check through the published research to see if any ties you into Charlemagne. There aren't many research projects outside of the nobles and royals that will tie a "commoner" into the Merovingians.

Answer 2

My friend and I were both able to trace out lineage back to Charlemagne using familysearch.org
It took quite a while and you must have names of your ancestors from at least two or three generations back to search through. It's best to check the links of every family member you know (great-greats usually) and all of the ones the site tells you. Sometimes you will just have dead ends, but there might just be a known relative that does go back! Good luck and have patience:)!

Answer 3

85% of us with English, German, French, Swiss or BeNeLux ancestry can get to Charlemagne with a little elbow grease and lots of trust. Anything before 1700 is murky and anything prior to 1500 depends on genealogy of Nobles. They had a vested interest in provong their Noble Blood, and the genealogists they hired were paid by results. So, if a short, blond, blue-eyed king and queen had a strapping brown-eyed, brown-haired son who was born 9 months after the Italian National basketball team came to entertain the court, the clerk tracing that line wouldn't have any problem naming Prince Luigi the legitimate son of King Olaf the Squat; it was better than losing both eyes and hands.

You have to work from yourself backwards. Reed Wurts has a couple of books you can either buy or check out of the library. Write of you are interested or Google him.

Answer 4

Your looking at about 46 generations. - very difficult. 30 generations contain over 1 billion ancestors (although many would be duplications - people with multiple common ancestors)

Here's someone who proports to have done that: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/2298/royalty.html

It might be of some minor help for generations near Charlmagne.

The ONLY way to trace your genealogy is to start from you - and work backwards.

Start with your parents & grandparents, and use U.S. Censuses, vital records, and other resources to get back to original US immigrants. Their naturalization papers may provide a clue to the family (actually multiple families) in the old country.

If you have a surname that ties into a royal family - like the British Royal family. (Burke is a good example) - you might be able to so it, but very unlikely.

The fun is in the discovery - there will be many amazing facts available. - Trust me - I find records & stories all the time on ancestors. (one gr-gr-grandfather was wounded at Gettysburg, and no one in my family had any idea that a member had served in the Civil War.)

Good hunting!

Answer 5

According to 3 different sources, I am a descendant of Charlemagne. Charlemagne is No. 52,630,248,456 by my reckoning. (My Mom is No.1, her Dad #2, her Mom #3, and so on; in other words, excluding duplicates, etc., it took 9 times as many people to go from Charlemagne to my Mom as exists on earth today.) Of course, this has nothing to do with you.
The ONLY WAY to connect yourself to some ancestor is through one of your parents! Working backwards is THE ONLY WAY of researching ancestors...your genealogy...your family tree...your ahnentafel. Trying to work from some historical figure down to yourself will only lead to heartache, frustration, and, oh so many errors!
If you really believe you are descended from Charlemagne (probably half of Europe is!) research Charlemagne to find out his offspring, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You will see that they spread out over much of Europe...
Keep those names in mind; but, starting with your parents, go to your 4 grandparents, your 8 great-grandparents, your 16 great-great grandparents, and so on.
On my tree, Charlemagne was 36 generations AGO. As there are doubtless hundreds of millions of descendants of Charlemagne, there are hundreds of millions of ways to trace ancestry back to him!
But, for you, there is ONLY ONE CORRECT WAY; through your parents! (You will probably be descended more than one way; that is, your ancestors will be descended from one or more of his children. He married quite a few times, plus had concubines!)