No Charlemagne family history connections for you---yet. Apparently there are those that consider it "hot stuff" to brag descendancy from this leader of the Holy Roman Empire. Although "He was temperate in eating and drinking, abominated drunkenness, and kept in good health despite every exposure and hardship.”, he was also brutal in his quest to spread Christianity. But no connections for you yet.
NPR blogger Robert Krulwich recently discussed the popularity of shared Charlemagne ancestry and brought to mind a very interesting mathematical reality. Theoretically, you can calculate your ancestors by doubling the numbers for each generation back. For example, 10 generations means 1024 ancestors (which isn't too far from the total number I currently have in the combined Dalpiaz/Ryan tree). So, back to the time of Charlemagne (48 generations give or take) each person would have 281.5 TRILLION ancestors. See the problem? There weren't even a trillion people on earth in the year 800 AD.
So, now what? Of course, even though you still have 281.5 Trillion grandparents of some level, each isn't a different individual. Cousins marry, for example, and pretty soon you're tripping over the same people in more than one place in your tree.
The good news is that genealogy is finite. There comes a point where no records are available and you can put all the names you want to into those 281.5 trillion slots on the tree, but without records to document proof, it's like a hangman game--just filling in the blanks to win the game.
This is described as "pedigree collapse", which is the phrase that came to mind since I read that cell phone providers are running out of airwaves to support all the SmartPhone data plans out there. Called "spectrum crunch" (sounds like a breakfast cereal), this problem highlights that the wireless spectrum can't support promised services as it is a finite resource. Apparently Smartphones are infinite or this problem wouldn't exist (suggesting a quick and sensible solution).
Regardless, perhaps wireless providers will be forced to collapse and marry its cousin. Verizon, meet T Mobile. Or we could just send Charlemagne.
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