Why are most Brits decended from medieval kings?
Part of it is just sheer mathematics. There are people documented at 26 generations from Edward III. The number 2^26=67 million. Now there could be many more than 2 children per generation, but many died out, and branches of the family intermarry after several generations. The actual mathematical simulation is very complex. ======================== Edward III lived through the black death as did all of his children. He also had a very large number of grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren. So he had a lot of descendants by the time the middle ages ended and the population started exploding. The known descendants are mathematically increased through known birth and death rates, and a given amount of cousin marriages. The numbers are continually grown in the 19th century when there were better census records. ———- Edward III had a big advantage over his groomsman whose children mostly died of disease or starvation. He couldn’t afford to feed as many mouth
