People often ask if my dogs are related. “Sure,” says I. ” If you go back far enough, all these dogs are related.”
As I was walking them this morning it occurred to me that you could say the same thing about all of us: look back far enough and we are all probably related in some way. Maybe if we thought about that now and then we’d treat everybody more decently.  Either that or we’d subject each other to that special brand of scrutiny we reserve only for our relatives.
But if any of your ancestors lived in Europe, especially western Europe, then it’s almost certain that Charlemagne is one of your ancestors. No matter where your ancestors are from they probably share a common ancestor with everyone else from that region. What’s surprising is that many of those common ancestors lived only 1200 years ago.
I’d be very interested in having one of those DNA tests that traces your origins.
I think there may be Pug in my bloodlines, or allergy season is worse than normal.