The Fallen of Le Mans

On the nights of 12 and 13 December 1793, the retreating Catholic and Royal Army of the Vendée — less an army than a fleeing people, with its elderly, its women and its children — was overtaken in the streets of Le Mans and destroyed. Beneath the Place des Jacobins, in the shadow of the cathedral, rescue excavations found nine pits holding 159 of the dead, covered in quicklime: a fraction of the thousands who fell within the town walls. Nearly half were women and children. Among the small things recovered were Republican uniform buttons and a purse holding coins and a little gold cross. These genomes come from the teeth of two of the fallen, read two centuries after one of the darkest nights of the French Revolution.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Oral health status in historic population: Macroscopic and metagenomic evidence.

Every Ancestrify Global25 report includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances — that is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Fallen of Le Mans are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about the full G25 analysis.

• 01

  Who were the Fallen of Le Mans?

  The Fallen of Le Mans (December 1793 CE, Place des Jacobins, Le Mans, France) are one of the Historical figures entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 2 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Oral health status in historic population: Macroscopic and metagenomic evidence".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Fallen of Le Mans mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No — and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

• 04

  How do I see my own distance to the Fallen of Le Mans?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestrify Global25 report — never sold separately. Order the G25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers — browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

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