Blessed Virgin Mary - How Did I Get Into Jesus' Family Tree?

There is a medieval legend that some of the Welsh kings were descended from Joseph of Arimathea, said to have been an uncle of Mary. The legend exists in several conflicting forms. It was incorporated into the various stories about King Arthur.

Because the Welsh kings were supposedly related to Mary, after so many generations, so is all of western Europe.

The legend is totally unfounded. No serious scholar accepts it, but it pleases many people to see it in their genealogies. When you think about it, the story might be wrong but it's also a very old tradition and it's deeply embedded in our collective history.

Many people are part Jewish going back to the various Diasporas, especially Christianity-converted Jews.... My Grandmother's maiden name translates perfectly into the ancient Hebrew meaning "Set/made by YHWH". Though she and my mother were raised strict Roman Catholics.

Only my studies over the years led me to discover that, and I find it fascinating. They were likely Sephardic Jews that went to Calcutta via Armenia over many centuries, which was where she was born, but raised Catholic in a convent environment, as was my Mum.

Virginia Gwathmey Married my Cousin Adam Empie.
Her Tree connects to 1st President George Washington,
who`s Tree connects to the Scandinavian King`s,
who`s tree ties into the Holy Tree.

Justin and Peter have very informative answers here. Thank you!

Justin, if the legend is unfounded and no scholars accept it, why is it in a genealogical tree here on Geni? Just because it pleases people?

I am very much against having and showing lineage that is both unfounded, heresay and fantasy, which this looks as it is. I think we should remove totally unfounded links since they have no place in genealogy. Genealogy is to important to be based on pure fantasy. Please remove the totally unfounded links.

Remi Trygve Pedersen Excellent question. The answer might simply be because If genealogy were truly a strict science then probably all our trees would have to be removed as DNA samplings show that much more than 20% of children are not the biological offspring of their purported "fathers".

So, as long as we allow ourselves to live fantasies, then ought we not give others the same privilege?

Plus, if we were to carry this logic further, there is absolutely no way to prove that any of our lineages are "pristine". And, would we really want to remove all fantasy and have our own personal family legends be put under microscope?

"God . is your 36th great uncle's wife's sister's husband's first cousin once removed's wife's niece's partner."
Here at Geni, you can find a MP profil of God, curated by one of Genis curators.
What does this tell about Geni?

Private User The answer is in Ecclesiastes 9:11

I returned, and saw under the sun,
that the race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong,
neither yet bread to the wise,
nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favour to men of skill;
but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Remi, you asked why this tree is on Geni if it is just a medieval legend. There's a very short answer - Geni's users are sharply divided on whether it is proper to show "traditional" genealogies.

There are dozens of these traditional genealogies on Geni. Greek gods, Norse gods, Trojan kings, links to the Biblical tree. They have been discredited by modern scholarship, but they reflect the scholarship of our medieval ancestors. Some people love them. Some people hate them. (Personally I think they're very interesting on their own terms.)

In a collaborative environment, we respect the well-founded arguments of our peers.

A single user cannot decide to simply delete our collective heritage. Annotate them and discuss them, yes, but if you delete them you'd be vandalizing the tree.

Perhaps some day a consensus will emerge.

Here's why I think these discredited lineages are so interesting.

Imagine you're a pagan king in Britain. Like pagan kings everywhere you belong to an illustrious family that claims descent from the gods and goddesses of your people. In your case, the Celtic goddess Anu a/k/a Dana.

Now the Romans come with their superior technology, lucrative trade deals, and higher standard of living. Their Christian god must be stronger than your gods because they're winning all the battles. So, you agree to join them.

There's some horse trading involved. You want the best deal you can get. One of the problems to be sorted out is that you're going to lose your descent from the Great Goddess Anu. Don't worry, they tell you. Anu was a real person. She wasn't a goddess, but our research shows that she was really Anna, a close cousin of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was G-d's mother.

That makes sense to you. The Romans with all their superior scholarship have already shown you the evidence that everyone in the world is descended from Adam and Eve. You're willing to replace your old stories with "modern science".

So, you go for it. You become a Christian. You give up your Celtic gods (mostly). Maybe you're not descended from gods anymore, but your lineage is as good as it gets. Your family is still very special, related to Jesus himself.

And, that is really what happened. A family of Celtic kings in Roman Britain replaced their divine ancestor Anu with "Anna", an invented person said to have been Mary's cousin.

Stories like this repeated all over Europe. Christian monks connected the old gods to Trojan kings and to ancient Romans and to Biblical figures. They didn't just make something up. They struggled to figure out how their people connected to the latest science, a system where everyone is descended from Adam and Eve. And, because the social order was divinely mandated, it was an incontestable fact that royal families must have been royal back to the beginning of time.

They were doing genealogy with the tools they had. It's a story worth preserving.

And in every story there is truth to be found. The world was smaller than we believed it to be, distances were perhaps less vast, and it is the simply the dating - and the naming - that is, "science" - in error.

A thinking person knows to be skeptical of a Frost Giant in their tree; but when they popped up in mine, I began to think about who they were the analogy for.

Ofcourse such stories should be preserved, as what the are, just stories. No evidence of truth anywhere. And it does not belong in our genealogy.

To me genealogy is a science as history is, but that doesn't meen that DNA can give the only proof. The sources we use are divided by how much we trust them, some are almost complete trustworthy and some are fairytales, with everything in between. Our job is to try to use the most trusted sources and reject those that are false and/or fantasylike.

And, Malka, yes I want to remove the false links between people, fantasies doesn't belong in genealogy. You can add the legends and stories in their notes, but should't add the parents of a person if you think the parents are only a fantasy.

Again Remi, I'd advise you not to start deleting links without broad support from the other users. But, if you do, be sure you create links to the disconnected profiles in the About Me sections, and be sure to document the primary sources that support them as well as the academic sources that explain why they're wrong ;)

Oh, I don't have enough knowledge about the people or this timeperiod. So I leave that job to the historians like yourself and hope you will do the job so we can get our tree as correct as possible.

I will on the other hand sever links were I have the information and knowledge that can support that the link is untrustworthy. But that is more or less in the scandinavian lines, and after the admins of the profile has had an opportunity to come forward with sources that support their point of view. If they do not answer on the other hand, the tree will be corrected to what the best sources I can find say.

And to prevent that the severed links will be linked again, the About me section should be used as you point out, with an MP note to also help things out.

Remi Trygve Pedersen Your concerns is very understandable, in that as a true professional genealogist you seek absolute integrity in all your pursuits and endeavors.

However, Geni.com's mission as a genealogy site is unique, in that the ultimate aim is simply to provide an avenue of non judgmental genealogical and social intercourse in order to show that we are all one people, one family with one story and hopefully ultimately this will help promote more peace in the world . http://www.geni.com/blog/

Has anyone of you heard of Josh McDowel? He was a lawyer who set out to disprove the Bible, and the existance of Jesus (His name at the time of his birth was Yashua.) Instead, he found him to have existed, and not a myth.

Josh McDowel wrote books in regard to his research to disprove the Scriptures. One of them was "Evidence that demands a verdict" and "More than a carpenter".
Below is a link to more books he has written and who he is, if you are interested. .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_McDowell

Not by writing false familytrees, Malka. And Geni is not unique, it's just another genealogy software where people can collaborate online. We may be one people, but we are aboslutely not one family with one story, on the contrary, we are several families with several stories, and the stories of these families should be written down and connected correctly.

Malka, would you like to present your familytree to your family if you knew that some of the lines were false and pure fantasy, and not showing where you are in doubt?

Bonnie, I'm not trying to disprove the Bible, nor saying that Jesus didn't exist. But if you add Jesus to your familytree you must be pretty sure that every link from you and back to him are correct, and not wishful thinking. And I think that is impossible, since there are not enough credible sources to prove your connection, and that is what genealogy is all about.

I'm pretty sure that the norwegian kings from the viking period are my ancestors, but it is almost impossible for me to find sources that can collaborate those lines, and because of that the norwegian kings are not linked to me in my genealogical software (offline), and they will not be linked either before credible sourced gives me a connection back to them. Every person working with their familytree must work this way, if not the trees will be full of lies. And I have seen plenty of those.

Remi Trygve Pedersen You are absolutely right! Perhaps the truth hidden within legends are more potent when left unattached to our individual trees, because ironically divine genius and holy luminaries seem to sprout most abundantly within the obscure in genealogy.

http://www.geni.com/projects/Inspirational-Luminary-Guides

While so many seek impeccable illustrious pedigrees , it is very often that genius and greatness emerges forged from the crucible of the lowly.

What I do like to show my family. ie. that the hidden and disowned in every family tree, may just turn out to be that family's unique treasure. There are myriads of untapped gems of genealogy, treasures awaiting research.

Just yesterday I came across this intriguing puzzle . . . . .
http://www.iwbeacon.com/the-genius-of-john-nash.aspx

"In 1798 the 46 year-old Nash mysteriously became very wealthy at the same time as he married the relatively poor but beautiful 24 year-old Mary Anne Bradley.

Nash acknowledged no children but Mary Anne acquired five mysterious infants, officially distant relatives with the family name of Pennethorne, born from the time of the marriage up to 1808. They were widely assumed to be among the Prince’s many illegitimate children."

Leonardo da Vinci, Richard Wagner etc.

Remi, I understand the argument you're making, but I think you are confusing cases where a genealogy is clearly invented with those where the source is open to criticism as an invention.

Let's use Anna as an example. Harleian manuscript 3589 is dated to about 1100. It contains many old Welsh genealogies. It gives a long genealogy of King Owain (died 988) then says: "... qui fuit Beli magni filius, et Anna, mater eius, quam dicunt esse consobrina Mariae uirginis, matris Domini nostri Iesu Christi." [... who was son of Beli the Great and Anna who is said to be the cousin of Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ our Lord.]

If a genealogist has only this (and related manuscripts) as a source, what choice do you make? If there is no other source that contradicts it, do you just accept it? Or do you analyze the source?

The source is very clear and explicit that Anna was a cousin of the Virgin Mary. I believe the relationship is false, but that's an opinion not a fact. No amount of arguing will make the source go away. Someone else can reasonably argue that it preserves an oral tradition (in a culture where we know oral traditions were zealously preserved).

Of course, we analyze sources all the time. But this isn't a simple case. If you argue that the connection must be cut in order to do good genealogy, you are arguing that one opinion should win out over another opinion even though both sides have good arguments.

Instead, I think we do better if we let the information stay but take the time to document the arguments against it. You could reasonably argue that there is doubt (though some people would disagree) so the connection is doubtful, and it should be cut and then documented that way.

Either way, it's a circular argument. The source exists. Different people will have different opinions about whether it is right.

Justin, if your translation from latin to english is correct: [... who was son of Beli the Great and Anna who is said to be the cousin of Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ our Lord.] Then the source does absolutely not say explicitly that Anna was a cousin of the Virgin Mary. On the other the source states that "Anna is said to be the cousin of Virgin Mary". To me there is a lot of doubt in the part "said to be", and the perosn who has written the source has his doubts. So, to me, the source is very clear about the doubt. If this was the only source I had for the relationship between Anna and Virgin Mary, the relationship would be cut in my tree, just because the source has doubts.

If your translation is correct you just proved my side of the argument, that the link should be cut. It's even the opinion of the source.

As you perceive, the problem is complicated by the existence of other sources that make the connection explicit. They are later, so perhaps doubt became certainty (it happens) or perhaps there was doubt by this writer but not by others, or perhaps this writer did not have access to the details that are given in other sources (which are themselves not above criticism).

I think you miss the main point - if an ancient source says it, how much credence do you give it? Whatever you decide, you are giving an opinion and hoping to weigh it as a fact. Science gives way to subjectivity, but you hope to disguise the subjectivity and make it into a new fact.

I always try to grade the credibility of the sources I use, and I try to use as many sources as possible, at the same time trying to find out which sources use each others information. Some sources are even very credible in some of it's information and almost untrustworthy in others.

Grading the credibility of the sources we use are of paramount importance in genealogy and when in doubt we have to find other sources to back up the information. I don't underdstand your last sentence, but it doesn't matter much. I work and teach the way I and my fellow genealogists that I have worked with, have found is our best way. Doubtful links between people has nothing to do in our familytrees before they become more trustworthy. New sources are found all the time, so we just have to wait and see. Hopefully some source will tell the fairytail of when Anna became Marys cousin. Or how their familytrees really are connected. Until then I prefer Anna and Mary not linked together. But I haven't read the sources, so my opinion really doesn't count much in Annas and Marys case. But as long as the scholars find the information unfounded and unacceptable, it's good enough for me, and it should be so for you to. We have to trust the experts, right?

It appears that you are both striving for INTEGRITY for our future generations to come. Truth and Integrity have always played an important part of my life, so I support your efforts. I can only make sure that the information I put onto the Geni Site is True and accurate, to the best of my knowledge. I would hope that we all, who are seeking our roots would feel the same. Justin and Remi, and my brother Howard, I have need of your knowledge to keep things on track. Thank you for your committment you have made to make the information stand with Integrity.

To all following this Topic,
If I may "throw my hat into the ring" so to speak,

During the following conversation, I do not wish to anger anyone, by any means.
And when I mention GOD as a he, or his, or man, I mean to include women as well.

As a Christian-Methodist man, I am Convicted that GOD himself wrote the content of the Holy Scripture`s.
That said, one may choose to believe GOD`s word, or not.

Within the Holy Bible (King James NIV), and the Holy Kuran and the Holy Bibles from other Religions, one can find very similar text.
Within these Holy Text`s, are written Lineage`s from GOD himself, through Adam and Eve and addem infinitum. (Genesis, Chronicles)

If a Geni user, starts with one of these Tree`s, that have been established, and is able to Trace there name to that tree, they may come reasonably close. I cannot speak for GOD, but something tells me. he would not have a problem with that.

As for us, the Geni Community, we should hope anyone that does incorporate their Tree, into the Holy Tree, should be compeled to Research as accurately as possible, before posting, using the Holy Scripture as a starting point.

Will these works of Man ever be right?
Probably as close as they can be.

Again I say, accurately as possible one must try to be, using Science to prove Citation would be foolhardy, as Science and the perfection of our Holy GOD do not compare.
Science, is a way to help men explain physical things to other men.

GOD`s Holy Scripture is meant to enlighten mankind to strive toward a peaceful understanding of his lifetime while on this Earth.
Thank You for listening to my humble, Christian-Methodist opinion.
And I truly wish GOD`s best Blessings,on everyone.

Remi, Most scholars reject this connection, but not all. (No matter how outrageous, there is always an academic somewhere who accepts an idea.)

One of the fundamental problems I see is that in our modern world many people allow their prejudices to guide their investigation. Even scholars approach this question with the idea it can't possibly be true. That idea colors the investigation. There is no hard evidence, but still it can't be true. Other people think "this can't be true", so they want to cut the connection without even investigating it.

Stop and think: for a thousand years it was "true" that Anna was Mary's cousin. Lawyers even argued before the papal court that English kings should take precedence over other western European kings because of their relationship to the Holy Family (and other reasons).

Then it stopped being true. Why? Not because of any new evidence against it, but because academic fashions changed. "it couldn't possibly be true". (Scholars also decided that the earth revolves around the sun, but they had evidence to support the new fact.)

And that's where we are today. It can't possibly be true, even though it is a very old and venerable tradition, and there is no evidence against it.

I don't accept it. You don't accept it. And many people on Geni don't accept it. But, another large group does accept it.

My argument here is that we should not cut their connection just because we disagree with them. The people who accept it are not just a bunch of looneys who don't know how to do genealogy. They are people who support a thousand year old tradition that has no evidence against it.

As curators, you and I both have a duty to foster debate and discussion. We cannot just cut connections because we personally don't like them.

As Malka says, Geni is a different kind of website. We have to cooperate with people even when we disagree. And, as Erica says, a thinking person knows to be skeptical of a Frost Giant in their tree ;)

Bonnie, thanks for the kind words. Remi and I disagree sharply on quite a few things, but one thing we do not disagree about is that Geni should be as accurate as we can all make it.

Christopher, my great grandfather was a Methodist preacher, so I understand what you're saying. In this case scripture doesn't give us much of a starting point. We get Joseph of Arimathea and the prophetess Anna, but nothing to tell us if they were related to Jesus or how. The early church had a number of traditions regarding Jesus' family, including this one. To many believing Christians a criticism of the relationship between Mary and Anna is an attack on their faith and tradition. Geni draws users from many different religions, so we have to be respectful when including or excluding certain relationships.

My Grandfather James Edward Estep was a Methodist minister also, and I have 2 brothers, Raymond and Howard Carlson, who were and still are missionaries in Africa, and Howard spent many years in Israel. While Howard was in Israel, he did many archeological digs, and was able to varify biblical facts. He got me started on the Geni Site about a year ago. Because of our discussions, it has opened up questions I will ask him, as to what he has discovered, if anything about the relationship between Mary and Anna. Thank you. I am grateful for these discussions. I learn from them. Bless you.