St Andrew's day ink

[MacBean]

I think this thread wound itself into my sleep last night, and I started running the exponents. How many ancestors did my children have back 200 years (ca. 250), 400 years (4000), and 600 years (250,000)! The fact that I identify with MacBean and ignore the other 250 ancestors at the time my family came to the New World makes no rational sense. Yet I enjoy it.

On a separate note, I have often wondered if forming an identity involved pushing away that which is not included in that identity Hence the pants-bashing in this crowd

[OC Richard]

I think this thread wound itself into my sleep last night, and I started running the exponents. How many ancestors did my children have back 200 years (ca. 250), 400 years (4000), and 600 years (250,000)! The fact that I identify with MacBean and ignore the other 250 ancestors at the time my family came to the New World makes no rational sense. Yet I enjoy it.

This issue is sort of mind-boggling. In a book I'm now reading, Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins by Steve Olson, he says:

"One generation ago each of us has two ancestors...two generations, four grandparents; three generations ago, eight great-grandparents, ans so on. With each generation the number of our ancestors doubles.
Ten generations ago, around 200 years ago, each of us had 1,024 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.

Twenty generations ago each of us had more than a million ancestors. Thirty generations ago- at the beginning of the 15th century- each of us had more than a billion.

(But) a billion people did not live on earth in 1400. (He then goes on to explain "circles of inheritance", distant cousins marrying etc.)

At that point,the number of our ancestors reaches a critcial threshhold. It becomes greater than the total populations in various parts of the world... our ancestors probably included much of the adult populaton in the region of the world where they lived...

People like to trace their ancestry to famous figures...these claims are almost certainly true. If a historical figure who lived more than 1600 years ago had children who themselves had children, that person is almost certainly among our ancestors. Everyone in the world today is most likely descended from Nefertiti (through the six daughters she had with Akhenation), from Confucius, etc. "