> With fully random matings the number of your ancestors doubles every generation. Ten generations ago (250-300 years) we might expect about 1,000 ancestors eac

> With fully random matings the number of your ancestors doubles every generation. Ten generations ago (250-300 years) we might expect about 1,000 ancestors each contributing 0.1 percent of their total variants to your genome... when the number of ancestors exceeds 2,000-3,000 (12 generations would be about 4,000), it is likely that some ancestral sections of DNA have been lost altogether... by about 15 generations back many of the ancestors contribute no DNA variants at all but they are still ancestors on the lineage. So cool, I never thought about a generation limit to meaningful genetic contribution.