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All humans are 50th cousins?
- Thread starter RileyG
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Tuur
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I don't think anyone's pointed it out, but my back-of-the-envelope estimate has a major flaw: It presumes a population where none are isolated. Did mention that, but didn't bother to think about what that meant.
Let's say a family in Asia parted company about, oh, let's say 30,000 years ago to pull a number out of the hat, with one brother heading north while another stays behind. They really lose contact with each other's relations about 24,000 years ago when one strikes out across the land bridge. From that point their descendants have no contact until the 20th Century. That's roughly 960 generations, so they would be 959th cousins, far more than 50th. According to one theory, there was a split between European and Asian populations about 45,000 years ago, and had no real contact until Atilla rode into town about 43,000 years later. That's about 1,720 generations, so they'd be about 1,719th cousins. Populations that split over long periods of time would be way over 50th cousins in kinship, something I should have realized but didn't.
Let's say a family in Asia parted company about, oh, let's say 30,000 years ago to pull a number out of the hat, with one brother heading north while another stays behind. They really lose contact with each other's relations about 24,000 years ago when one strikes out across the land bridge. From that point their descendants have no contact until the 20th Century. That's roughly 960 generations, so they would be 959th cousins, far more than 50th. According to one theory, there was a split between European and Asian populations about 45,000 years ago, and had no real contact until Atilla rode into town about 43,000 years later. That's about 1,720 generations, so they'd be about 1,719th cousins. Populations that split over long periods of time would be way over 50th cousins in kinship, something I should have realized but didn't.
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Hans Blaster
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Even if we take the 50 generations within Europe or East Asia as a fixed thing, I don't think we need to get to 1700 generations between them. Even in ancient times there were long distance trade routes and other low-levels of population exchange. Not enough to change the overall character of regions, but enough to get that *one* person whose descendants include both groups. Think of the brothers in your example as traders from India, one trading with Mesopotamia, the other China, things happen...
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I've done about 5 different DNA tests, and many of them contradict each other.
It also occurs my deceased uncle (died 2010) apparently had an affair in the early 1960s....and someone who is 99.9% chance of being my first cousin messaged me. He found out via ancestry.com his father, whom he is named after, is not really his biological father.
Yikes!
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Tuur
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I'm dubious about these kinds of tests matching regions. I'm especially dubious about how they manage your information. What finally shook out with 23andMe data?
Ultimately, except for health reasons, it doesn't matter, anyway. Who our ancestors were has no real bearing on us. And if we play the game of halving their genetic contribution with each generation, very quickly it runs to practically nothing, unless there's some kind of trait that manifests with the right gene combinations.
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