Amazing
The table given below is derived from a segment on the TV programme QI. You will see that if we work back from Ximene’s time to the year 600 Ximene ( and everyone else in the 14th Century) will have more ancestors than there are people in Europe. By the time of Jesus the difference is staggering. Ximene must have had one trillion ancestors wheras the population of Europe was only five million.
Therefore Ximene (and everyone one else) must have been descended from everyone alive at the time of Jesus. Jesus included, if he had any children. Not only that, each individual must be repeated many times in any one family tree.
The Table
| Generation | Number of ancestors | Year | Population of Europe (M) | ||
| 0 | 1 | 1380 | 81 | ||
| 1 | 2 | 1350 | 79 | ||
| 2 | 4 | 1320 | 76 | ||
| 3 | 8 | 1290 | 74 | ||
| 4 | 16 | 1260 | 71 | ||
| 5 | 32 | 1230 | 69 | ||
| 6 | 64 | 1200 | 67 | ||
| 7 | 128 | 1170 | 64 | ||
| 8 | 256 | 1140 | 62 | ||
| 9 | 512 | 1110 | 59 | ||
| 10 | 1K | 1080 | 57 | ||
| 11 | 2K | 1050 | 54 | ||
| 12 | 4K | 1020 | 52 | ||
| 13 | 8K | 990 | 49 | ||
| 14 | 16K | 960 | 47 | ||
| 15 | 32K | 930 | 45 | ||
| 16 | 64K | 900 | 42 | ||
| 17 | 128K | 870 | 40 | ||
| 18 | 256K | 840 | 37 | ||
| 19 | 512K | 810 | 35 | ||
| 20 | 1M | 780 | 32 | ||
| 21 | 2M | 750 | 30 | ||
| 22 | 4M | 720 | 29 | ||
| 23 | 8M | 690 | 27 | ||
| 24 | 16M | 660 | 26 | ||
| 25 | 32M | 630 | 25 | ||
| 26 | 64M | 600 | 23 | ||
| 27 | 128M | 570 | 22 | ||
| 28 | 256M | 540 | 21 | ||
| 29 | 512M | 510 | 19 | ||
| 30 | 1G | 480 | 18 | ||
| 31 | 2G | 450 | 17 | ||
| 32 | 4G | 420 | 16 | ||
| 33 | 8G | 390 | 14 | ||
| 34 | 16G | 360 | 13 | ||
| 35 | 32G | 330 | 12 | ||
| 36 | 64G | 300 | 10 | ||
| 37 | 128G | 270 | 9 | ||
| 38 | 256G | 240 | 8 | ||
| 39 | 512G | 210 | 6 | ||
| 40 | 1T | 180 | 5 |
Qualification
There are several faults in this apparently compelling argument.
Those who are promoting the purer strain of Sangreal believe there is an unbroken Matrilineal link back to Mary Magdelene. However even those who believe that Jesus had children and had a daughter called Tamar have never shown any evidence that Tamar had children. It does not matter how many ancestors Ximene had, if Tamar did not have children there can be no matrilineal link.
Selection
Another fault in the argument is that powerful families practiced selective breeding. It is almost impossible to calculate this effects but some bloodlines were hoarded by a small number of families.
A counter argument is that selective breeding probably had little effect in terms of the distribution of bloodlines . Younger sons and daughters, barred from inheritance, made the best marriage they could . Often within two generations their children had no idea what their bloodlines were. This in turn then made the bloodlines available to the general population.
The Sangreal
However, the proponents of the Sangreal and those who simply wanted to take advantage of it, were concerned not just with probabilities but with proof. This segment, concerned with Ximene’ genealogy, is therefore concerned with a specific chain of relationships extracted from family trees. We will take information from wherever it can be found, family records, libraries and the miriad of web sites which in general follow the old tradition of telling the story they want to tell. Whilst reviewing Ximene’s genenealogy just remember that. The question is “is there enough evidence to suggest that those in the 14th century could have been convinced”?. It proves impossible to offer conclusive proof but events suggest that in 1350 they were convinced.