4 ms·

We are all basically sixth cousins from what I've seen written.

• lolinder 3y ago
  As long as you're comparing two people from the same country and ethnic group (which tend to be the most common pairings for childbearing), it's pretty close to true. It doesn't work so well if you're comparing people on different continents.
  • CrazyStat 3y ago
    A country is too big. The number of 6th cousins somebody has is on the order of thousands. If you're from a small town with stable population (people haven't moved in or out much for the last couple hundred years) you might be 6th cousins with pretty much everyone.
    • lolinder 3y ago
      Agreed, sixth is too close to be "everyone" in a country, but the general principle is accurate: we tend to have closer common ancestors than we might think.
    • mistrial9 3y ago
      many earlier societies had traditions of inter-tribal wife-stealing .. farmer cultures with socially important grandmothers practiced social interchange.. meanwhile, opportunistic breeders often physically moved around and did not have stability patterns.. this is a massive subject, not possible to talk about without errant conclusions and misstated sub-parts, right?
      • CrazyStat 3y ago
        None of that changes the math of how many cousins you have.