In this months edition of the Atlantic online, Steve Olson writes about how it's likely that nearly every European is decended from English royalty. And indeed it's probable that each of us is a descendent of Charlemagne and even Confucius. There's an Irish angle here too - Olson has come to Ireland to trace his roots and bases the article on the work of DCU computer scientist Mark Humphrys. Via Arts and Letters Daily.