What are the odds of actually being able to successfully trace your ancestry to

Question:

What are the odds of actually being able to successfully trace your ancestry to the year 3AD?

My friend got on a bit of a kick lately, and she went and traced her ancestry, which is pretty cool, I'll admit that. But she managed to trace it back to the year 3AD, and found that there is some royalty in her family. Now I'm not trying to rain on her parade or anything, but what are the odds that she successfully traced it back that far and accuratly to 3AD? Because I know that a lot of professionals have a hard time going back over 2000 years, and I'm just wondering if it would be possible, for a total amature of 20 years old, to be able to trace her history back 2000 years, using only the internet.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: 70% of the people in the world with English, French, German, Swiss, Northern Italian or BeNeLux lines are related to Charlemagne, usually through the illegitimate child of some king or another. Proving it is the hard part. Once you get to Charlemagne, you can get to Adam, if your faith is strong and your cynicism weak.

Up to 75% of the genealogy on the Internet is accurate, I've heard.

If you believe everything you see on the Internet, and get lucky, you could trace back to Adam and Eve, let alone 3 AD.

Verifying that line would take the rest of your life and considerable funds. Even then, lots of kings and queens in the middle ages lied on official documents. They would hire researchers to "prove" their lines went back to high and mighty kings, to prove their right to the throne. So, verifying by looking up the source document might not count. Imagine a book, "Ancestors of Charles the off-key Tenor, king of the Eastern Swamp that Bruce the Strong Arm didn't want". You might find the original document said yes, when Charles was born the skies opened up and angels sang, all right. His mother, Cleopatra, and his father, Atilla the Hun, were both pleased. That doesn't make it true.

I saw a motto once I liked a lot - "All relatives prior to 1750 are for amusement only".