At Prodavus, we research your family history and design a family tree that connects you with not only your closest ancestors, but also to historical figures from the medieval and antiquity periods.
How we work:
To achieve this, we will send you a file where you can input the information you know about your family (you, parents, grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc.). We will also ask if you have taken a DNA test and, if so, to include the regions with more prevalence. This information does not have to be exhaustive, but the more information we have, the better the chances of success. Keep in mind that in many cases, genealogical information is not available for people who are presumed alive, so we need to gather as much information about your ancestors who lived during the 20th century.
We start our research using multiple sources where data is input and reviewed by genealogists, with solid documented evidence, searching for links to historical early modern or medieval figures. You don’t have to pay anything for this preliminary research at this stage. If we find these links and you agree to continue with the research and design of your family tree, 50% of the total cost should be paid at this point.
At this stage, our work begins. The research forms a big part of our efforts, but the design component is also a labour-intensive task; this ensures your family tree is comprehensive, captivating, and visually appealing.
Before finalizing your family tree, we will present it to you for review, allowing for any necessary amendments. Upon approval, you will receive a high-definition PDF file formatted in A2 size (42.0 x 59.4 cm or 16.54 x 23.39 in), which you can either print and frame yourself or opt for our printing, framing, and worldwide shipment service at an additional cost. The remaining balance of the payment is due at this stage. The entire process typically takes 3 to 7 weeks to complete.
What's in your tree:
This family tree only includes the parents of each individual and does not extend to siblings. The general style of the family tree is as follows (names have been removed to protect our customers) which includes around 400 individuals.
The tree will start with you at the bottom of the A2 poster, and we start working upwards. Male names are in blue and tend to flow left in the diagram (with exceptions); females are marked in amber and tend to flow to the right (also exceptions); for females, only the maiden name is considered. The first time a last name starts appearing, we try to include the family crest related to the lineage if available; also, we tend to use flags that signal the areas, countries, or regions where the individuals lived.
For prominent figures, we sometimes include a picture and the title or profession below their names. In some cases, there is a number on top of the person, which indicates that that person is a common ancestor of a famous modern/contemporary person. Looking at this number on the explanation caption will tell you who this famous contemporary person is. Sometimes, we include symbols on the top of the person which give us hints about their lives (e.g. John Killigrew was allegedly a pirate).
We try to find several branches that link you with these prominent medieval or early modern figures; to make this lineage easier to follow, we mark these lines in red.
We emphasize trying to have as much information about your closest ancestors (bottom of the tree), given that these are the ones who have a stronger connection with you. Consistently, we keep the same level alignment for each generation; however, given that for each generation, the number of ancestors is multiplied by two (generally, if we ignore mild incest), we will reach a point where we will not be able to fit people on the same line. At this point, we indicate with the rose symbol where this alignment will break, and we would generally only start considering only one parent, with the most interesting lineage; the relation will be marked as child parent. Doing this, we try to choose a path with the most significant historical people that can also lead us further in time into antiquity.
At this stage, you might start to find the coats of arms of royal families and a lotus symbol which indicates that although the lineage of this historical figure can go much further, it is not included on this tree.
The genealogies of royal families are very well documented up to the early Middle Ages. However, we don’t stop here to peruse lineages to antiquity (please read note on data accuracy below).
At this stage, you might also find some purple arrows to include very important historical figures that is not direct ancestor of the people of the rest of the tree, but through a sibling leading to a common ancestor.
We also include biblical and mythological genealogies at the top of the tree.
Finally, we include captions with explanations and highlight common ancestors you share with famous people.
As a standard, we include deities from ancient Greece, the Abrahamic tradition, and Norse mythology; however, this and many other style features like additional pictures, background colour, etc., can be removed/modified if requested.
Data Accuracy:
Back in 2013, geneticists Peter Ralph and Graham Coop established that all people of European ancestry are direct descendants of Charlemagne. This can also be analysed from a mathematical point of view: if we double the number of ancestors from now to the times of Charlemagne, we would have around 137,438,953,472 ancestors then—more people than were alive at the time, now, or in total. What this means is that pedigrees begin to fold in on themselves a few generations back and become less arboreal and more a mesh or weblike. You can be, and in fact are, descended from the same individual many times over. There is virtually a 100% chance that Charlemagne is one of these. The problem is how to prove it… Genealogical information is experiencing rapid growth, with an increasing availability of resources. We are wary of certain open-source collaborative databases; that's why we utilize check and cross-reference multiple sources where data is input and reviewed by genealogists, with solid documented evidence, ensuring the most comprehensive and accurate information possible. We try to draw a general historical picture of which you are a part of; however, if you have done exhaustive research yourself, where you might have hit a brick wall, you are trying to solve a family mystery, or you want very detailed information from a particular ancestor; probably, we are not the right people to hire.
Unfortunately, genealogy is not an exact science, and even the most experienced genealogists make mistakes. Just think of solid documented evidence of a person and then things get mixed with a non-related homonym living at the same time in the same village; or even fathers unknowingly raising children who are not biologically theirs. In Prodavus, we try to find not only one lineage but several to these medieval historical individuals, choosing the most consistent ones within different branches of your family.
It is also important to issue a warning regarding the lineage or descent from antiquity. In European genealogy, a descent from antiquity (DFA) is a proven unbroken line of descent between specific individuals from ancient history and people living today. Descents can readily be traced back to the Early Middle Ages, but beyond that, insufficient documentation of the ancestry of the new royal and noble families of the period makes tracing them to historical figures from antiquity challenging. Though the subject of ongoing effort, no well-researched, historically documented generation-by-generation genealogical descents are known to exist in Europe. Hellenistic dynasties, such as the Ptolemies, claimed ancestry from deities and mythical figures. In the Middle Ages, major royal dynasties of Europe sponsored compilations claiming their descent from Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and particularly the rulers of Troy. Such claims were many times fabricated, intended as propaganda glorifying a royal patron by trumpeting the antiquity and nobility of their ancestry. The distinguishing feature of a DFA compared to such traditional pedigrees is the intent to establish an ancestry that is historically accurate and verifiable in each generation of the descent, setting the DFA apart from the legendary descents found in medieval genealogical sources. DFA research has focused on the ancestries of royal and noble families, since the historical record is most complete for such families. Particular attention has focused on possible genealogical links between the new dynasties of Western Europe from which well-documented descents are known, such as the Carolingians, Robertians, Cerdicings, and the Astur-Leonese dynasty, through the ruling families of the post-Roman Germanic dynasties and Franco-Romans to the gentility of the Roman Empire, or in the Eastern Mediterranean linking the royal Armenian wives of some Byzantine emperors through the ruling families of the Caucasus to the rulers of the Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman-client kingdoms of the Middle East. No European DFA is accepted as established. The outlines of several possible ancestries that could become DFAs have been proposed, but they each lack crucial evidence. Nonetheless, we rely on these possible DFAs in our family trees including some aspects of traditional medieval genealogies, folklore, biblical and mythological claims.
Who we are:
Our team is passionate about genealogy and history, our research relies mainly on online genealogical resources. Based in the UK, our team operates globally, serving clients regardless of their location or family origin. While richer data may be accessible for specific European and English-speaking regions (UK, U.S.A., Australia), databases for various other European and Latin American countries are continually expanding.
Data protection:
We do all that we reasonably can to keep your personal information safe, handling it responsibly and complying with the data protection laws. We will use your personal information solely for the purpose for which you sent it. No personal information you supply will be shared with any third parties. We may keep some or all your details and research on file with the sole purpose if you require some further research in the future or any amendments to the previous work. However, let us know if you prefer to delete it.