Manke Jan killed off a West Frisian farmer's uprising during his life, in which another ancestor of mine might have participated on the other side, as the male line of my father's side of the family comes from this area and were farmers (there's no way to prove that they were there long before 1800, though -- the association with Charlemagne comes through a woman married by one of my great-great-x...-grandfathers who had a genealogy that could be tracked back further).
Assorting to anecdotal evidence, Charlemagne is said to have had a protruding belly and reddish hair, according to the Dutch Wikipedia entry. My belly will also protrude if I don't start exercising more soon and though my hair is blond, my beard is reddish (though this is often ascribed to the Nordic 'Viking' blood I have through my grandmother's ancestors).
The Dutch wikipedia entry also states that genealogists sometimes allege that all Europeans are descendants of Charlemagne.
My mother's family came to the east of the Netherlands from Belgium about 200 years ago and it is rumoured that they have Hun blood. I think little of these rumours, but it is funny to entertain the thought that I descend from both Charlemagne and Attila.
I was recently talking to someone about how difficult it is to become a licensed genealogist because I guess people like to scam clients: charge insane fee to tell them they are the direct descendant of Shakespeare or Julius Caesar or some nonsense. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Or at least you can make an industry out of the people who do.
The same for Genghis Khan: c. 25 generations away, makes c. 17 million great23-grandfathers, that's some 4% of the then world population, could still be regionally discernible in the gene pool. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
