British GENES competition winners

So here we have it folks, the grand draw to win two copies of my latest book, Irish Family History Resources Online!



Congratulations to Bob Fraser of Sterling, Massachusetts, USA, and Diane Bamberger of Toronto, Ontario, Canada!

Just to give the answer again - we could each theoretically have 4096 ten times great grandparents if none of our ancestors were cousins who married. Here's the table:

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents
16 two x great grandparents
32 three x great grandparents
64 four x great grandparents
128 five x great grandparents
256 six x great grandparents
512 seven x great grandparents
1024 eight x great grandparents
2048 nine x great grandparents
4096 ten x great grandparents

And theoretically, if you keep going back, by the time you get to your twenty times great grandparents you would have 4,194,304 ancestors within that generation - but that's a bit unlikely! We'd be well into the realms of cousins intermarrying by this point - not least of which because we'd probably have more ancestors than the population of Britain!

Congratulations again to the winners, the books will be posted to you in the next few days, and thanks to all who participated.

If you would like to get a copy of Irish Family History Resources Online it can be purchased from Gould Genealogy at www.gould.com.au/Irish-Family-History-Resources-Online-p/utp0282.htm - the international postage rate from the company is the same rate as postage would be within Australia.

Chris