4 Months: Namesakes - Part 1

In October of 1492, as Columbus set sail to "discover" the Americas, Augustino Balbani—born in Lucca, Italy—was 35 years old. His father, who had one month to live, had also been born in Lucca. In fact, the Balbanis had been living and dying in Lucca for at least seven generations—since 1280. So even if he had been aware of Columbus' voyage, he would probably have had difficulty imagining that his 16th great grandson (that's great great great 16 times) would be born in an as-yet undiscovered New World, and would carry a localized version of his name: August.

It would take another hundred years before Augustino's great granddaughter would leave Lucca, and move to Geneva, Switzerland. In another hundred years, that woman's great great grandson would leave Geneva for the New World and settle in Virginia, not far from where I grew up, in fact. But it was still more than 300 years 'til August would be born, after the line had traveled through Kentucky, New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Idaho and Montana and then returned to the east coast. And there, in Boston, a boy would be born—so WASPy, so fair—that Augustino Balbani's Northern Italian ancestors might regard with great skepticism his claim to their lineage.

Genetically, we can quite safely call August a WASP. After all, the child is literally Anglo (much English blood) and Saxon (ancestors who lived in Saxony when it was called Saxony) and Protestant (at least through descent - John Calvin lived in Geneva for nearly 30 years, and many of August's ancestors were there during and after that time in the mid 1500s). So although we can trace August's ancestors back 24 generations to Turco Balbani, born in 1280 in Lucca Italy, mathematically, that individual contributed only about one 17 millionth of August's genetic code: or 0.000006%. So August could be excused, perhaps, for not looking the part.

More later on other namesakes and on other discoveries I've made, such as how it is that Turco Balbani turns out to have actually contributed twice as much to August's genetic code as reported above: one 8.4 millionth (0.000012%).