Could I actually be a great-grandson of Julius Caesar?

Question:

Could I actually be a great-grandson of Julius Caesar?

I saw how one of my relatives on a accurate website was listed as a 58th great-grandson of Caesar.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Very unlikely.

Julius Caesar did not have any legitimite descendants who survived to adulthood (his daughter died in childbirth).

Assuming he fathered illegitimate children, I suppose it's possible you are a descendant of one of them, however, the website you describe as "accurate" is almost certainly not.

Records of european 'common folk' (who compose the vast, vast majority of almost everyone's ancestry) go back only until the 1500s at the earliest (and very often, far less back). To get back any further, you have to hit a line of nobility - not impossible, but not certain, either. When I see sites that purport to trace ancestry into the early middle ages (and back), I get very skectical and frankly, tend to discount ALL the information that site provides, since uncritical acceptance tends to be a sign of a poor researcher.

Even with nobility however, records become sparse as you go back, and there are simply no credible genealogical records going back to ancient rome - period. Anyone who claims otherwise or has lines going back that far has either made it up, adopted faulty research, or used many, many assumptions and fictional genealogies (for instance: Elizabeth II would be a descendant of Woden, the Supreme Norse God according to these works).

This said, probabilities would hold that if you have ancestry tracable to S/E Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa, you almost certainly have (some) blood of the Romans in you - just nothing tracable to any specific person.