The Soldiers of the Reapers' War

For twelve years Catalonia was at war with its own king — the Guerra dels Segadors, the Reapers' War — until the royal army of Philip IV starved Barcelona into surrender in October 1652. These two men were soldiers of that besieging army, buried hastily and without ceremony at its encampment of La Sagrera outside the walls, where excavations for a railway later found them among coins of the early seventeenth century. Their genomes sketch the crown's polyglot ranks: one man's closest kin are today's Sardinians, the other's the Basques. One of them carried paratyphoid fever of the same strain that had devastated colonial Mexico — evidence that in the age of empire, epidemics crossed the Atlantic in both directions and stalked the siege lines of Europe.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Salmonella enterica from a soldier from the 1652 siege of Barcelona (Spain) supports historical transatlantic epidemic contacts.

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 Soldiers of the Reapers' War are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about the full G25 analysis.

• 01

  Who were the Soldiers of the Reapers' War?

  The Soldiers of the Reapers' War (1652 CE, La Sagrera, Barcelona, Spain) are one of the Historical figures entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 2 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Salmonella enterica from a soldier from the 1652 siege of Barcelona (Spain) supports historical transatlantic epidemic contacts".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Soldiers of the Reapers' War 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 Soldiers of the Reapers' War?

  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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• The Báthory Family1550–1600 CE

• Ludwig van Beethoven1770–1827 CE

• The Fallen of Le MansDecember 1793 CE

• Prince Christophorus Corvinus1499–1505 CE

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