The ancestry, by the numbers

Regenerated 8 August 2026 from the master GEDCOM, after the Raleigh and St Leger work. Direct ancestors now 1,265 — up from 1,230 yesterday, 833 on 30 July, 642 before that.

Who they were

Full social breakdown of all 1,265 direct ancestors, each counted once in the highest category that matches:

CategoryCountShare30 Jul
Monarchs and consorts24719.5%216
Titled nobility (earls, counts, barons, lords)37529.6%222
Knights and baronets342.7%29
Gentry, clergy, officers604.7%36
Named trades and labourers332.6%41
Too little detail to classify51640.8%289

Aristocracy proper — monarch, peer or knight — is 656, or 51.9%. Add gentry and clergy and it is 716, or 56.6%. The aristocratic share sits a little below where it stood on 30 July (56.1%), and it sits there for a good reason: the August work went sideways as well as upward, wiring in the wives, mothers and daughters who carry the lines but whose own records say almost nothing. They land in the unclassifiable bottom row, which is now the largest single category in the table. The crowned heads themselves went on rising — 115, then 216, now 247.

How many ways in

Distinct descent paths from Aynsley to each ancestor, counted through the tree:

AncestorPaths30 Jul
Brian Boru21
Edward I71
Rhys ap Tewdwr81
Empress Matilda142
William the Conqueror246
Alfred the Great52
Vladimir the Great528
Rollo19414
Charlemagne26330

The single roads are gone. Ten days ago there was one route to Edward the First, one to Brian Boru, one to the Welsh kings; there are now seven, two and eight. Deeper in, the braiding is on another scale altogether — Charlemagne arrives two hundred and sixty-three separate ways (was thirty), Rollo a hundred and ninety-four (was fourteen), Alfred the Great and Vladimir of Kiev fifty-two apiece. This is pedigree collapse doing what it does: each new house wired in this month married into houses already in the tree, so every fresh entrant multiplies the roads to everyone standing behind him. Thirty-five ancestors were added since yesterday and the count to Charlemagne almost doubled. The furthest ancestors sit forty-six generations back.

Source: Damery_Family_Tree_corrected_2026.ged as at 8 August 2026, 17:34 (2,334 records / 1,469 people / 865 families). Direct ancestors = every forebear reachable through parent links from Aynsley Damery, counted once, however many times the tree reaches them. Paths = distinct chains of parent links from Aynsley to that person, computed twice by independent methods and cross-checked. Social categories assigned from each ancestor's own recorded title, style or occupation, an independent recount each time, so category boundaries may differ by a few from the earlier pass; the 30 July column is shown for direction of travel, not for exact comparison.

‹ The Royal Houses  ·  The Descents