The fact that we exist, as the individuals we are, is mind-boggling. Go back 8 generations and you’ll discover that you have 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. Go back to the start of the 1600s and you’ll discover that you owe your existence to 1,024 people who were alive at the time; 2,046 including those who came after.
No-one of course lives their lives in isolation. We spend every day interacting with friends, family or strangers, and as such, all those people too have influenced our coming-into-being.
My 9th great-grandfather, Gabriel Baines (born in 1610) was one of 1,024 people alive around the time on whom my existence has depended. Factor into that equation, that everything (and I mean everything) those 1,024 people did in the early 1600s had to be done exactly as it was, then you begin to appreciate how extremely unlikely you are. (Extrapolate this out and one could say that everything that everyone did had to be done as it was for any of us to be born who were are.)
Leaping ahead from the early seventeenth century to the mid 19th century I find my great-great-great-grandparents. Since beginning my research in 2007 I have discovered all 32 of them. Imagine then a day in 1845. All 32 of these individuals were living in England and Wales (their ages and place of residence at the time shown in brackets).
Richard Hedges (37 – Dorchester, Oxfordshire)
Ann Hedges née Jordan (38 – Dorchester, Oxfordshire)
Elijah Noon (27 – Oxford, Oxfordshire)
Charlotte Noon née White (26 – Oxford, Oxfordshire)
William Lafford (21 – Ampney St Peter, Gloucestershire)
Elizabeth Timbrill (18 – Minety, Gloucestershire)
Abel Wilson (27 – Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire)
Hester Wilson née Pillinger (22- Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire)
Alexander Jones (44 – Mynyddyslwyn, Monmouthshire)
Martha Jones née Harries (27 – Mynyddyslwyn, Monmouthshire)
Edmund Jones (28 – Trevethin, Monmouthshire)
Sarah Jones née Jones (27 – Trevethin, Monmouthshire)
Enos Rogers (4 – Clutton, Somerset)
Jane Tovey (4 – Llanfoist, Monmouthshire)
Alfred Brooks (7 – Bettws, Monmouthshire)
Ruth Waters (5 – Machen, Monmouthshire)
John Stevens (33 – Reading, Berkshire)
Elizabeth Stevens (28 – Reading, Berkshire)
Charles Shackleford (28 – Reading, Berkshire)
Mary Ann Jones (20 – Reading, Berkshire)
John Thompson (31 – West Walton, Norfolk)
Maria Thompson née Hubbard (33 – West Walton, Norfolk)
William Baines (20 – Gainsborough, Lincolnshire,)
Martha Baines née Moore (20 – Gainsborough, Lincolnshire,)
George Sarjeant (31 – Lewes, Sussex)
Sarah Sarjeant (39 – Lewes, Sussex)
James Barnes (23 – Arlington, Sussex)
Eliza Barnes née Deadman (21 – Arlington, Sussex)
Henry White (46 – Brighton, Sussex)
Mary Ann White née Ellis (29 – Brighton, Sussex)
John Vigar (36 – Worth, Sussex)
Elizabeth Vigar née Simmons (33- Worth, Sussex)
For a bit of background: in 1845 the Prime Minister was Robert Peel. On 15th March the first University Boat Race took place and on 1st May the first cricket match as the Oval was played. The rubber band was patented and the last fatal duel between two Englishmen was fought on English soil. Potato blight in Ireland saw the start of the Great Famine.