Can You Trace Your Ancestral Lineage Back to Adam and Eve?

Note: Before you read this blog, I want to state that I am of the Christian faith, I am spiritual, but, as a genealogist and researcher, the answer to this question may have different answers. It’s a difference between faith and science. I will discuss the scientific side in this blog.

This question has often come up in the genealogical community, mostly among genealogical hobbyists.

The straightforward genealogical answer to this question is “No.” So let’s explore this answer a bit more.

Although many Christians would like to lay claim to that lineage, the answer for them is built on a premise of faith set forth in the Bible. But genealogists research and prepare family trees and lineage on the Genealogical Proof Standard (further referred to here as the GPS).

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The purpose of the Genealogical Proof Standard is to show what the minimums are that a genealogist must do for his or her work to be credible and was created by the Board for Certification of Genealogists. It is used to create sound, credible genealogical proof statements, and gives genealogists a standard against by which they measure their conclusions and/or their family tree/lineages.

There are five elements to the Genealogical Proof Standard:

1. Reasonably exhaustive research has been conducted.

2. Each statement of fact has a complete and accurate source citation.

3. The evidence is reliable and has been skillfully correlated and interpreted.

4. Any contradictory evidence has been resolved.

5. The conclusion has been soundly reasoned and coherently written.

However, any proof statement is subject to re-evaluation when new evidence arises.

So, what people mean when they say that their tree goes back to Adam and Eve is that someone has written a tree that shows all those names and relationships. But are they real? Maybe, but as genealogists, we must prove and apply the GPS through research, collaboration, and documentation that the names listed were real people. Can we actually do that?

Well, even if many Christians believe that the world was created between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago and that Adam and Eve lived then, genealogists have no real proof that those people ever really existed. Think about it, the earliest books of the Bible were historically written around 600 B.C., in those years the languages that existed, and that we can understand, were translated literally or they even may have been written in “dead” languages that no one today can understand. So how can we corroborate the names of those people listed on someone’s hypothetical family tree? Refer to element number three of the GPS.

The problems associated with a family tree/lineage that dates to Adam and Eve are several. I will briefly discuss some of them here:

1. Lines of ancestry – We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, thirty-two great-great-grandparents, sixty-four great-great-great-grandparents, and so on. Each generation would double that number! So, if there are approximately between 140 to 160 generations to about 4,000 years ago (as some people believe is the time that Adam and Eve lived) how would we corroborate all of the documentation? By the time someone got back to their 30th great-grandparents, it may be about the year 1000 A.D. and would have approximately four billion lines to go through. If you multiply that out, you will probably need 456 billion years to research your tree. It is just not possible in the lifetime of a human being to research all of them. Just as a side note here, a lot of people alive today do not even know the names of their grandparents or great-grandparents! Compare and contrast that truth to knowing the names of ancestors from 160 generations ago.

2. Record availability – Most records before the year 1500 were never even kept. Births, christenings, marriages, or deaths were not recorded until about the 16th century, mostly by the church, or by the state. The exception may be some lines of royalty (say perhaps, Charlemagne, and his reign dates back to the 8th or 9th century). The fact that there would probably not be any written documentation or, even any spoken word family stories, would prohibit someone from recording a true family lineage or tree.

3. Trustworthy sources or record reliability – The records and documentation that many of us rely upon for our genealogical searches and family tree lineages were not written specifically for genealogical research. For instance, family trees that were made for the nobility to show succession to the thrones of the old kingdoms were made to keep the monarchy in certain familial lines. Sometimes they were made under threat of death by a royal family member that wanted to usurp the throne. Think about it, if you had to make a family tree under threat of death you might use stories, myths, or even build a tree that is purely fictional. And who was going to check all those stories or myths for accuracy? An exception may be in the Vatican City, there are extensive books, documents, records, and letters in their miles and miles of underground storage areas. But again, can we totally trust them? Were they altered, or perhaps some were destroyed to reflect the politics of the Catholic Church hundreds or thousands of years ago? Sometimes information can just be a matter of faith.

4. Language – In the United States and other English-speaking countries today we usually look for documents and records that are written in English. Sometimes we may indeed speak more than one language and/or we use translation services. However, much of that information may be lost or changed in translation. Records before 1500 were often written in Middle English, or before that in Olde English, Olde French, or in an exceedingly early Latin vernacular. Surely, we would need a translator that is proficient in those languages. Finally, records may be written in dead languages that no one in the modern world has yet to understand. So, those records are not valuable to us because we cannot translate them. We would need a team of people in history centers, universities, or museums working on those languages to begin to find the key to translating them. It is remotely possible but not currently available to the genealogical hobbyist to access them.

5. No contemporary records – By that, I mean records from the era of the family trees encompassing the time periods for which we are searching. As discussed earlier, the Bible’s earliest books or records are from about 600 B.C. Certainly, Adam and Eve, from a religious or church point of view, lived thousands of years earlier. Translations, the written and spoken words, transcription errors, and memories have all changed or faded in some way that makes these records unreliable.

In conclusion, it is not possible to trace your family tree back to Adam and Eve through the traditional genealogical paths that we have used during the last few hundred years, not to mention using the Genealogical Proof Standards that genealogists adhere to today.

As I end this blog I defer to the expertise of Robert C. Gunderson, Senior Royalty identification Unit Specialist of the Genealogical Department Society of Utah.

“In thirty-five years of genealogical research, I have yet to see a pedigree back to Adam that can be documented. By assignment, I have reviewed hundreds of pedigrees over the years. I have not found one where each connection on the pedigree can be justified by evidence from contemporary documents. In my opinion, it is not even possible to verify historically a connected European pedigree earlier than the time of the Merovingian Kings (circa 450–A.D. 752).

Every pedigree I have seen that attempts to bridge the gap between that time and the biblical pedigree appear to be based on questionable tradition, or at worst, plain fabrication. Generally, these pedigrees offer no evidence as to the origin of the information, or they cite a vague source” (Robert C. Gunderson, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Feb. 1984, 31).”

Although he wrote this in 1984, I am unaware of any breakthroughs that would change this position.

However, from the point of religion and faith - that is a totally different matter. Your own choices and beliefs come into play here.

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