UKC

Not seen this programme in years as it seemed they had run out of interesting 'celebs' to research. This view was initially confirmed when I stumbled across the show last night where they had professional geezer and occasional screen actor Danny Dyer. Tracing his ancestors back, research found that his 15× great grandfather was Thomas Cromwell. His 14× great grandmother was Elizabeth Seymour, the sister of Jane Seymour, who was Henry VIII’s third wife and Queen. Elizabeth married Cromwell’s son, Gregory Cromwell, and with the Seymour family’s assertion to be descended from Edward III, the line stretches back to William the Conqueror.

Not bad for the somewhat cockney typecast actor whose roles largely consist of playing football hooligans, gangsters or both.

In reply to C£ Chullain:
Well, I've heard of his ancestors, but not him I'm afraid! I'll google.

Edit: nope, I'm none the wiser after doing that!

In reply to Fraser:


It's the other way round for me. Don't you have the slightest suspicion that an awful lot of British people are related to both the aristocracy and Danny Dyer?

In reply to Fraser:



As mentioned above he is a professional off the screen geezer and somewhat typecast actor whose roles largely consist of playing football hooligans, gangsters or both. His films rarely feature anything described as a plotline, rather a series of set pieces either in a pub, a West Ham terrace or in a Range Rover in Essex while wearing a leather jacket and saying 'you farkin caaant' or ' leave it out' a lot before hitting someone with a snooker cue or bottle.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Isn't just about everybody related to everybody if you go back 15 generations?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


Probably

So what are you getting me for Christmas?

In reply to Cú Chullain:


pregnant.

In reply to graeme jackson:

Ha!

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Indeed, I have read that, apart from recent immigrants, every person in the UK is descended from William the Conqueror. I assume that difference for the royal family and other "ancient families" is that through intermarriage they are descended several times over.

In reply to Cú Chullain: It was a good program.

Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485, in Putney, then a very rough area, as was Dyer, now that was a rise to fame like no other!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell

In reply to Mike Highbury:


Quite probably! I do remember seeing one episode with Rupert "Double-barreled actor person" whose ancestors were traced back to Adam and Eve, I kid ye not!

In reply to Cú Chullain:


That isn't acting, that's Essex

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


Not watch the programme for a few years, but usually if they go back that far it means they have not found anything interesting.

In reply to Fraser:
Matthew Pinset discovered he has a family tree going back to Adam & Eve which is pretty comical.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/past-stories/matthew-pinsent.shtml

A genealogist knew they were onto a good thing when they traced a king back to Adam & Eve.

In reply to elsewhere:

Ah, that must be who I was thinking of, sorry. I can't image they'd manage to get two such independent results.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

If you live in the Forest of Dean, you don't have to go back any generations to achieve that.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Here is an article on that very thing
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/07/charlemagnes-dna-and-our...
Basically you have two parents, then four grand parents, then 8 great grand parents, then 16 great-great grand parents and so on. As you go back to in time, forty generations or so (the time of Charlemagne), you should get to a generation of a trillion ancestors. That’s about two thousand times more people than existed on Earth when Charlemagne was alive.
To quote the article.

"As you go back further in time, more of those lines cross as you encounter more common ancestors of the living population. And then something really interesting happens. There comes a point at which, Chang wrote, “all individuals who have any descendants among the present-day individuals are actually ancestors of all present-day individuals.”

So you are related to William the conquerer as he was related to Charlemagne. There are 32 generations between Elizabeth and William so i am not sure how that works out

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Sadly, maths kills the 'amazeballs' outpouring in response to this story.

Take a chess board and put one grain of rice on the first square; that is you. Now put two grains of rice on the second square; that's your parents (2^1=2). Now put four grains of rice on the next (third) square; that's your grandparents(2^2=4). Continue in this fashion for the next 14 squares, doubling the number of grains on every successive square.

At this point you are at the 15× grandparent. This is 2^16=65,536. So notwithstanding a degree of inbreeding, Thomas Cromwell's genes are barely a sixtyfive thousandth of Dyer's genome.

I'd say he has some 'muppet' in there as well.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

The Business
http://imdb.com/rg/an_share/title/title/tt0429715/

Was actually half decent.

Cheers
Mark

In reply to Bimble:


Cornwall, where your sister also your aunt.

In reply to Big Ger:
Look at Cleopatra's family "tree" where your uncle is also your husband over several generations.

In reply to Shani:

What might be more amusing would be discovering how closely related some UKCers are to the likes of Farage, Boris or, I wouldn't wish this on anyone, the Gove family.

In reply to Lusk:

What might be more amusing would be discovering how closely related some UKCers are to the likes of Farage, Boris or, I wouldn't wish this on anyone, the Gove family.

Be really ironic if it was you...

In reply to Lusk:


This is far and away the worst thing about being Scottish, even worse than Liam Fox, Tony Blair and Golf.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


It's reckoned that about 1/16th of all humans that have ever lived are alive right now.

In reply to Fraser:



Leave it out

In reply to FactorXXX:



I can dismiss afflictions off with a shrug of a shoulder and slight raising of an eyebrow.

In reply to Fraser:

That's interesting - he's been a pretty ubiquitous figure of media fun since getting caught having a wank by his mum in Human Traffic circa 1999 (peak Dyer imho). Might I ask how old you are?

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:

53. I've not heard of 'Human Traffic' either, sorry.

(yikes, when did I become my dad?!)

In reply to Fraser:

That'll explain it. Good film - or it was when I was twenty.

In reply to Fraser:



That makes two of us......!

In reply to Fraser:



I'm 53 and our little group used to watch this movie each Sunday morning around 6am. Reach for the lasers!!

In reply to BnB:

Niiice one bruvva!

In reply to Cú Chullain:

I like Danny.

From a humble start in life ,which he is very frank and honest about,he has done well for himself.

A thoroughly decent chap.

Favourite Danny Dyer film??? ......The Business.

A right fahkin giraffe.and no mistake.

In reply to Lusk:


And , if not Boris, or Gove or Farage , who would you ( in Brexit terms ) would you like to be found to be related to ?

In reply to Jim C:
Please not Andrea Leadsom. The others all have something (even if it isn't something I'd like to embody personally). La Leadsom appears so full of self-regard that I can't see any space left for empathy, useful talent or a decent brain. The horror is that so many took to her until she car-crashed out of the leadership race.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Yesterday there was a spot on the local news to the effect that Donald Trump is a direct descendant of Richard III (apparently Trump's been invited to Leicester).

Someone having done the maths said that he's in a group of about seventy million who are as closely related as he is to the king. Not such a close relationship after all.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

This begs the question why it's taken 13 series of this show (and about 100 guests) to get someone who is related to Thomas Cromwell?

Surely it would have been easier to do a one off show with a chess board and some rice for an explanation, then have a conveyor belt of celebs go past the presenter as he/she says repeatedly "you're related to Thomas Cromell, Horatio Nelson and Nigel farage! "

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


Everyone else obviously had an interesting story a good few generations sooner.

In reply to Siward:


Are you sure they weren't saying that he is a "Richard the third" ?

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


Sounds like the plot of "Indian Countryfile".

In reply to The New NickB:

Except for Michael Parkinson who was lined up for the programme but dropped because the researchers couldn't find anything interesting to say about his ancestry. At all. Ever. Just generation upon generation of unremarkable Yorkshire folk.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

How about being related to Oliver Cromwell and Charles I

In reply to Siward:

Just generation upon generation of unremarkable Yorkshire folk.

Shurely no shuch thing - ed.

In reply to Bimble:

One of the favourite terrace songs in German football suggests that the opponent´s (several versions available) genealogical tree looks more like a circle...

CB

In reply to cb294:

"Family tree in a straight line", "Dross-on-Wye gene puddle" etc...