Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos
The mathematics of genealogical collapse are rather surprising, and by the time of the War of the Ring the Dunedain had had over thirty generations in Middle-Earth. They were probably all descended from Elendil, in the same way that everyone with European descent is descended from Charlemagne. And given the small initial population of Númenor the three thousand years that they lived there were probably enough to make the Númenoreans all descendants of Elros, and therefore of Idril and Elwing. Certainly many of the Númenoreans who survived the destruction of the Land of Gift (whether in ships or in Middle-earth) will have been descendants of Elros.
They won't have had much Elvish ancestry, with only one part-Elvish ancestor in their initial gene-pool, but they would likely have had about the same proportion at every level of society. And by the time of the War of the Ring there will be a substantial proportion of the human population of the West and South who are descended from Faithful or Black Númenoreans, and therefore of Elros, and therefore of Elvish royalty.
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True enough. It would be limited a bit by intra-familial marriage (the Line of Elros often married cousins) but it would still hold.
It also fits with JRRT's comments to the effect that one reason the Beren/Luthian and Tuor/Idril marriages were allowed/fated was to introduce the strengths of the Elves into the Mannish race (and vice versa, though that matters less to us).