When—Not If—Your Family Goes Extinct

Your own Little House is almost certainly going to get a lot smaller.

Ma and Pa Ingalls: zero living descendants.

Family Extinction is the Rule, Not the Exception

I like to tell myself that by having five children I have massively increased the odds that at least a few of my direct descendants will inherit the Earth, even living as far down into the future as humanity manages to get.

Perhaps one of my distant great-great-great grandchildren will even be there at the end—whether it arrives via nuclear winter or nuclear summer, giant meteor or alien invasion, or the final judgement day.

But maybe I assumed wrong. Most famous people have no living relatives. George Washington had no children. There are no living descendants of Julius Caesarr

I was curious about how many families have died out, and how far back someone can trace their own existence.

Before we get to the answer, we need to talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder.