mt DNA results

[gilmore]

[QUOTE=Ozark Ridge Rider;758896]

We are all cousins. It's a question of degree. The most recent common ancestor of all humans lived sometime between the 6th millemium BCE and the 1st millenium CE. The most recent common ancestor of all Western Europeans may have lived as recently as 1000 CE. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_re...ommon_ancestor

Put another way, I have read that with a 99+% certainly, any human alive in western Europe in Charlemagne's time either died sine prole (or their descendants died sine prole,thus ending the line), or is the ancestor of every last one of us.

As the number of our ancestors doubles every generation we go back, it doesn't take very many generations to get to a greater number of ancestors than all the humans who have ever lived.

Right, Charlemagne lived in the 8th and 9th Centuries, and the estimates are that the most recent common ancestor was some 200 years after that.

I have never come across an estimated date of the most recent common ancestor of those of British descent, but I would guess it would be even more recent, since the British Isles are separated from the continent, and the gene pool more isolated.

Some one famously said, "We (Europeans) are all descendants of Charlemange, but we are also all descendants of his stable boy." I don't remember how many reliable descents I have from Charlemagne---that is, how many times over he was an ancestor of mine--- but it's in the dozens, or scores. That may seem like a lot, and that my blood is excessively blue, but I have read that Prince William of Wales' traceable descents from Charlemagne are in the millions.

I am not particularly proud of my ancestry, since being born into it was done with no effort on my part, and was something that I had no control over (well, certainly not in this life, though who knows how karma generated in previous lives comes to fruition?) I am, however, a bit proud of the work that my family and I have done in genealogical research over the years. It can be fun, rewarding, and a project that a family can work on together.


It's much easier to trace ancestry through the royal, noble and famous, since the evidence---wills, evidence of marriage, inheritance, etc---are essentially documenation of the transfer of wealth. The poor---that is, the vast majority of our ancestors--- left no, or very little, of such evidence. It's also more challenging to research the more humble folk, since it's usually in virgin areas that few have worked before.

BTW an interesting and informative resource for medieval genealogy is http://groups.google.com/group/soc.g...edieval/topics