5 ms·
"You are descended from almost every single human being alive 1,000 years ago." Not exactly 1,000 years, but more like 120-135,000 years for the male line [1],
by pcrh 13y ago
"You are descended from almost every single human being alive 1,000 years ago."
Not exactly 1,000 years, but more like 120-135,000 years for the male line [1], and 200,000 years for the female line [2].
[1] "Sequencing Y Chromosomes Resolves Discrepancy in Time to Common Ancestor of Males Versus Females " dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1237619
[2] https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Mitochondrial_Eve.html https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Mitoch...
- Houshalter 13y agoNo it's much closer to 1,000 years. Every generation the number of possible ancestors you have doubles. 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents. Within a few generations back, you have literally millions of ancestors.
- bradleyjg 13y agoDoesn't that assume no overlap? It seems like the odds of 2^n unique ancestors would be pretty low by the time you get to 10.
- maxerickson 13y agoThis seems like a reasonable discussion of the issue: http://gcbias.org/2013/11/11/how-does-your-number-of-genetic-ancestors-grow-back-over-time/ http://gcbias.org/2013/11/11/how-does-your-number-of-genetic... After ~15 generations your genealogical ancestors aren't all that likely to have contributed much to your DNA.