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No 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
by Houshalter 13y ago
No 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.