Category:Offspring of Charlemagne

 Many Europeans descend from Emperor Charles "the Great" of the Franks. The ultimate aim of many hobby genealogists is to show that their family tree leads to none other than Charlemagne through one or other branch. The start was great, because the good man had taken care of many descendants. He had 4 wives and 6 concubines. 19 children were born from these relationships. However, it is even more important that after 40 generations we have more (namely: 2 to the power 40) ancestors, than there have ever been people on earth. This while in 800 only about 30 million people lived in Europe. So it is no different than that we regularly marry (distant) relatives with the regularity of the clock. And with this, all native Europeans are almost certainly relatives of each other and therefore also of Charlemagne or Charles the Great.