Was there really a navy officer named Picard at the Battle of Trafalgar?

Frame shift. Why should we care? Picard is a quite common French name, coming in at #81 currently, with 37k out of 60m French people. i.e. about 1/1600, in current France. It was probably higher in the past.

Picard is also an old French name, coming from the inhabitants of Picardie, a region in France that... sits on the English Channel.

In the US, #81 puts you at Ross - 80, Foster - 81, Gomez -82.

Was there really a Mr. Ross at Waterloo? A Mr. Foster at Trafalgar? How would that be a history question?

My probability-fu is rather outdated, but I suspect this is a variation of the shared birthday at a party problem.

(It is not the same problem, but it does boil down to calculating the probability that not a single person is named Picard, which is similar and uses the same reasoning of proof-by-opposite condition often found in probability problems).

If you have 1 officer, the probability that that 1 officer is not named Picard is (1 - 1/1600) is 0.999375. If you have 2 officers, the probability the 2nd one is independent, so the overall probability that neither is named Picard is the 0.999375 x 0.999375. I.e. .999375 to the nth power.

At 200 men you have an 88% probability no one is named Picard, at 500 73% probability. At 1000, 53% and at 2000 men there is only a 28% probability that no one is called Picard.

If I instead use a 1/1000 frequency (before immigration in France, taking into account location of Picardie region compared to a naval battle in the Atlantic) we already have a 40% likelihood of a Picard at 500 count.

Even without looking at detailed data, given the overall troop count there is a very low probability no one called Picard would have participated at Trafalgar.

Am I moving the goal posts by now talking about troops rather than high officers? The top answer here talks of a matelot, pretty much the lowest naval rank. And of another, quarter master, being a senior non-com rank.

There's actually a handy Wikipedia page for the Order of Battle at Trafalgar.

Looking it over, there doesn't appear to be a "Picard" captaining or acting as an Admiral on any of the ships of the line involved. I'd argue that anyone else there would not qualify as a "high ranked navy officer". So the answer to the question as asked is "no".

However, that doesn't have to be the end of the story. The odds against one particular famous ancestor of a person 40ish generations prior being the direct male ancestor are astronomically small (mathematically like a trillion to 1, but of course there weren't that many people alive back then).

So there's no reason to believe said ancestor would have been actually named "Picard". Far more likely, it was someone else. I don't know that we have enough information to pick out which person, but the list of French naval officers in command isn't huge. Feel free to look it over, and find some likely suspects.

Also, while I didn't see the episode in question, the Memory Alpha link neither says that his ancestor at that battle was high-ranked, nor that he was French.

This 1829 source, Histoire des combats d'Aboukir, de Trafalgar, de Lissa, du cap Finistère indicates there was a Picard in command (at some point) of a ship, the 74-gun Scipion, equivalent to a third rate ship of the line.

However, as Steve Bird has pointed out in a comment, the date on the list (1811-1814) from the book I cited was for a later ship, so the Scipion which was commanded by a Picard could not be the same ship which fought at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.

The Scipion which fought at Trafalgar was captured by the British On 4 November 1805, in the Battle of Cape Ortegal. That Scipion was captained by Charles Berrenger, as mentioned elsewhere in the same book and in the relevant Wikipedia entries.

Conclusion from the below, as well as other answers:

• There was a senior French naval officer named Picard, who by 1814 was Captain of Vessel (namely Scipion (1813)) equivalent to a Royal Navy Captain.

• Two individuals named Picard fought (sort-of) at Trafalgar, but were respectively a seaman and petty officer. Both were shortly thereafter captured by the British; thus neither could be the later Captain of Vessel Picard, if only because there were no French-British prisoner exchanges subsequent to Trafalgar.

• Captain of Vessel Picard apparently took command of Scipion (1813) in or about early 1814 from Barthélémy de Saizieu.

• We have no evidence as yet that (the later) Captain of Vessel Picard fought at Trafalgar.

Does anyone have access to a copy of this 2003 book?

• Dictionnaire des Capitaines de Vaisseaux de Napoleon by Bernard et Danielle Quintin.

It's in the University of Michigan Library system - but apparently only for in-person use (and of course in French).

From French Muster Rolls at Trafalgar of the UK National Archive.

A fee is required to proceed beyond just the index search above.

So there were at least 2 French sailors named Picard at Trafalgar, one a Quarter Master on Formidable. I'm unsure just what rank "Matelots a 24" signifies.

Formidable was the 80 gun flagship of Rear-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley at Trafalgar, Pelley commanding six ship French vanguard including also the 74-gun Scipion. Both vessels were part of the squadron defeated and captured following Trafalgar in the Battle of Cape Ortegal, on 4 November 1805.

Update:

Referencing the find by @justCal of a Captain of Vessel Picard in the 1811-14 time frame, in command of the French 74-gun ship Scipion (1813), not to be confused with any of:

• Scipion (1790) (destroyed by fire 1793);
• the renamed Saint-Esprit (wrecked January 1795); or
• Scipion (1798) (referenced above, serving as HMS Scipion in the Royal Navy following its capture).

All of Scipion (1790), Scipion (1798) and Scipion (1813) were French 74-gun Temeraire class vessels equivalent to a British Third Rate, while the renamed Saint-Esprit was a unique 80-gun design.

Wikipedia list the captain of Scipion (1813) as being Louis François Richard Barthélémy de Saizieu from its launch through the second abdication; but this reference for that individual is suspect (my emphasis):

Louis François Richard Barthélémy de Saizieu , born on January 31 , 1773in Tunis and died in Paris on March 27 , 1842, is an Empire starship captain.

However that source also states that Barthélémy de Saizieu fought in the 1814 campaign as commanding officer of the Sailors of the Imperial Guard, as Colonel and baron d'Empire: implying that he was replaced as Captain of Scipio (1813).