I wish I had time to prepare more webpages. I did one new one:Precedence of Catholic rulers.
Let me remind everyone again not to "read too much" into the language in which a name is spelled. I combine many sources (lately I've gotten much data from the splendid database of Camilo Jose Coelho dos Santos Oliveira) and am often reluctant to "correct" spelling. Many of the names in Camilo's database are shown in Portuguese (even if the person was German!); sometimes I try to change them back to German (or English) spelling, but sometimes, afraid of introducing new errors, I don't.
Someone has compared compiling genealogies with assembling jigsaw puzzles. Recently I chanced on an obvious connection that seems to be missing from all the on-line Gedcoms available at Ancestry/Rootsweb! The legendary Eyfuru SVAFLAMASDATTER had been in my database for a while, shown as 6-g grandmother of Ivar `Wide Fathom' (himself a (probably legendary) Swedish King who appears in most Viking pedigrees). Her father, as we know from her name, was Svafrlami or something like that; was he the famous legendary King of Russia who inherited the magic sword Tyrfing from his mother? The Gedcoms just showed his name, with no ancestry.
Working the other way, I looked in Gedcoms for the legendary King Gylfi, Svafrlami's grandfather. He was there, with the connection to Svafrlami shown, but with no descendants shown for Svafrlami. I made the obvious connection, though none of the Gedcoms with Gylfi had his great granddaughter Eyfuru, and vice versa. This isn't just a confusion based on similar names; the descendants of Eyfuru SVAFLAMASDATTER, though appearing without notes in the Gedcoms, are precisely the names in the Tyrfing myth.
Re-examining old data I've already done, I frequently find that someone with a simple name and no dates was actually an Earl or Lord Mayor. I've even found two Holy Pontiffs in the database with no indication, including Pope Alexander VI who was in the database twice, once as Alexander, once with his birthname Rodrigo Borgia.
In Version 18.1, there would now be 113,600 pedigree pages, however 13,944 pages are suppressed as trivial (see discussion in next section) so in fact there are only 99,656 individual pedigree pages.
I've gradually been adding to the U.S. Presidents in my database: 16 have their own pages and another 24 are mentioned under children without pages. On the list of famous descendants at the top of pedigree pages, I've deleted Roosevelt and Washington replacing them with "U.S. President" which can mean refer to any of the 40 U.S. Presidents with pages or mentioned in child lists. (The phrase "poss. Ancestor of U.S. President" can refer to either a possible ancester of one of those 40 Presidents or a certain ancestor of a possible President, namely Barack Obama.)
Beginning with Version 16 I've made a change to the data presentation: I suppress the pedigree page in certain cases where it would have no useful information at all. The page is only suppressed when the individual has no parents in the database, no alternates, no notes, no date or place information (unless both it and the name are very short), a shortish name, only one child shown, and when the spouse, if any is shown, shows only the one child. The name continues to appear, as spouse of ancestor, on other pages where it would normally appear, but without a clickable link. The name continues to appear on index pages, but the clickable link will take to you to the person's child. (I've done this, in part, because the website has grown almost to fill a complete CD-Rom; this will enable me to expand a little more without leaving anything out.)
There's still just as much information as before: the pages eliminated contributed nothing. To depict database growth with consistency, I'll continue to refer to the full number of pedigree pages there would be without the suppressions.
The database continues to grow, selectively. Version 16 has 103,966 pedigree pages. Over the years I've eventually included 14 U.S. Presidents: Washington, two Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, two Harrisons, Pierce, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, and two Roosevelts. No new Presidents for Version 16, unless you count Barack Obama, who is, as I write, the front-runner to be 44th President.
There are 101 persons on Hart's famous list of Most Influential Persons (counting the Wright brothers as one, but including both of the major 'Shakespeare' candidates); 32 of them are now in my database. I've added Charles Darwin, Vasco da Gama, and William Shakespeare for Version 16; Hernando Cortez, Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon were also added recently; the other 26 were in my database for other reasons before I'd ever heard of Hart's list.
I've added a few famous Americans including Harriet Beecher Stowe (who inherits her mtDNA from my ancestor Agnes Harris) and Jonathan Edwards. I've filled in several missing parts from royal pedigrees, especially French, Portuguese, Spanish and early Welsh ancestors. I was missing the d' ARPAJON family; in adding its connections coverage was increased for several other French families. And so on, and so on.
The Fabulous Pedigree Version 17 is available on-line at fabpedigree.com, or on CD-Rom. For anyone who purchased a CD-Rom before Version 17, write me and I will mail you a free copy of the Version 17 CD. (Only one free CD per paid order: If you take the free Version 17 CD, you'll need to pay for Version 18 CD, if there ever is such a thing.)
Nikolai Scheuring provided us with a chart showing the Most Recent Common Ancestor of today's European Monarchs.
For my previous "newsletter", Click here.
(For even older news, Click here.)