The problem with lineages back 1000 or more years is that there were few, if any, reliable records. Avotaynu once published, I think, 12 'Descent from Rashi' lineages, showing how each was flawed. Later there were a half-dozen more, none possible. Rashi was only 1000 years ago, not 'back to the time of Jesus'.

You can have a lineage back to Eden, as European royalty had made, but if it can't be true, what is the point. 

Sally Bruckheimer
Princeton, NJ