How far back you can go depends on many things. In trying to go back to the
temple in Jerusalem, a big problem is that no one had birth certificates in
the middle ages, so genealogy depends on different, less precise, sources.
I can remember in Avotayu many years ago, there was a series of articles on
the descent of Rashi-with maybe 10 different version. The result is that
none of them was without problems. Some of the terms which we would take
for *grandfather* for example, could be more loosely interpreted, and the
dates of certain, well known, rabbis were not in the realm of possibility
(so-and-so the father of someone 200 years later). The result was that no
one could *prove* anything. It may certainly be that we are all descended

from Rashi, but we cannot prove it (M. Bernet discovered that it is likely

we are all of us descended >from any person in the middle ages or before-if
any of us are).

There are family trees, showing that the kings of England and other
countries are descended >from Adam and Eve and other such things. But the
English one was put together in the 18th century (I think, it may have been
17th or 19th) out of *whole cloth*. And for those of us who do not believe
in the literal truth of the Bible, we would not necessarily believe in the
literal truth of the genealogy in it.

Yes, I know I will get lots of hate mail for this.

Sally Bruckheimer
Albany, NY