The example can trace 'American family back to the Revolutionary War'. Quote from the article.

Done the lineage stuff in 6.5 but the lineage storage (varchar(255)) was a problem because of the key sizes used for the parent/children relationship.

With SQL 2000, 8000 characters one should be fairly safe.

Lastly, I am a big fan Joe Celko and his smarties. Thanks for the article.