I just realised the reason why everyone and their mother has a noble or other important person in their lineage somewhere: they were the ones with the best chances of getting their offspring to prosper. It's just statistics.
It's more because they actually kept lineage records. Pretty sure that 99.9% of my lineage is non-noble. I only know the noble branches past a certain date because that's the only branches where sufficient fucks were given to write it down. Not really important to know who your grandparents, great-grandparents etc were when none of you had inheritable property.
Genealogy for recent generations is far, far easier due to the obsessive record-keeping of modern society. Ten generations hence, my GGGGGGGG-grandkids will be able to determine far more about me than I will ever be able to determine of my 10th-generation ancestors.
Man, how much do you charge for stuff like that? My family history is a complete fucking mystery.
Like I told Japa, I've never charged for it because it's been gifts and such. Plus, without a working computer at home (and some time during which I am neither sleeping nor working, which is rare these days) I have zero time for it these days.
Once I get a working rig and some free time again, maybe I'll start a thread for people who are interested.
EDIT: Oh yeah, my WTF is that I just did my timecard for the week...I've got over 40 hours of overtime this paycheck.