Twenty six million and four hundred thirty two thausand pages in the internet mention William Shakespeare, the famous brit born in the little town of Stratford-upon-Avon on 1564.

Poet, thinker and writer, he’s the author of some of the best known romances worldwide – Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth are just a few among his works that have been adapted to theater or film. One of the biggest controversies that mark the biography of this historical character concerns his birthdate. Nobody can say exactly if it was April 20th or 26th and to celebrate his birthday this upcoming month, we’re displaying here Shakespeare’s family tree.

If all his work woul be protected by copyright,  every  single of his descendants would be rich until these days, quite the oposite of Shakespeare himself who had a rather humble life. Maybe you should try to build up your family tree until you reach 1647. It’s possible you won the “lottery” and don’t know yet!

One of the readers of ipentimento blog is going to win a new genealogy book valued at $16.99 just for leaving a comment on the post. The contest will run till March 31, 2009 and is only open to people with a U.S. adress. For terms and conditions visit http://ipentimento.com/free-genealogy-book-contest

Some of you probably still know their great-grandmother, most at least their grandmother.

The family with the most living generations was the Bunge/Bollig family from Wisconsin (USA).

Mrs. Auguste Bunge (born October 13, 1879) came to know her great-great-great-great-grandson on January 21, 1989. On that day, her great-great-great-granddaughter gave birth to Christopher John Bollig.  At that time, seven living generations of one family could sit together at a table!

Got an iPhone? Now you can show your surname’s distribution in the US to everybody, everywhere. Simply install the small App on your iPhone, type in your Name (or any other) and see the map! The little blue arrow will bring you directly to your Surname Map page. The App was built by Centered Systems, this is the iTunes link:

The most interesting aspect of genealogy is finding out about the family’s past. This is what we found out by means of our last poll, where 54% of you voted for this answer.

As you probably know, you can invite your relatives from all around the world in 9 different languages. This week’s poll asks you to tell us in what languages you’ve already invited your relatives? Is your family international or do you come from the same block?

Dieter Macek from Austria has worked hard to build the Greek Gods’ family tree. He shows 5,639 gods and antique heroes on a 49,6 m display board. Zeus alone has more than 900 descendants, the huge family tree covers more than 1300 years and is accompanied by 10,000 pages of comments.

Macek discovered his interest in mythology at the age of 15 and started to collect and sort family trees of antique heroes. He is particularly proud of his directory of the nymphs, Zeus’ daughters.

Source: Link

A new study just revealed that there might be a connection between your first name and the probability of becoming a criminal. According to the source, the study says that “adolescent boys with unpopular names are likelier than other boys to be referred to the juvenile-justice system for alleged offenses”. Of course, there is no direct proof  and there must be hundreds of other factors influencing youngsters, but the crime rate among those with an improbable name is remarkably higher.

We’ve added surname maps for Spain! More than 97,000 Spanish names are listed in our database, we’ve got absolute and relative maps for you.

The Spanish surname maps (http://www.miparentela.com/mapas) are divided by provinces so that you can easily search for your surname’s distribution in España. Click here to go to the maps: >>> Link <<<

As we’ve reported in the past, there are several remarkable relationships between politicians. We’ve also mentioned the familial relationship between the President of the United States of America Barack Obama and famous actor Brad Pitt.

So for all of you who always wondered how these two very special guys can be ninth cousins, the Guardian’s got the answer. Click on the image to see the familial relationship in detail.

Here’s the link to the Guardian article: Link

Last week’s poll showed that genealogy is not (yet ) a daily work for about 35% of you. However, almost 30% spend up to 30 mins every day on genealogical research. This week, we’d like to know what aspect of genealogy is the most interesting for you. Is it your name, your living relatives or your ancestors?