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From:
Subject: Re: Most recent common ancestors
Date: 20 Jan 2006 05:06:33 -0800
References: <1137338990.456458.231910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <mo4ms15t5bs77ev0ds8bhs690882gdmb15@4ax.com> <dqf5c5$rl4$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <dqff7p$afe$1@eeyore.INS.cwru.edu> <1137418196.188867.258490@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <dqgcjb$bt0$1@eeyore.INS.cwru.edu> <b3gns1hvb0f8a24rt35mambfro31q1co61@4ax.com>


> What about using actual genealogy data ?

Hard to prove anything with it. Consider for example the Icelandic
genalogy database. It has pretty much the complete family trees for
every inhavitant of that country, as far back as records exist.

If I exclude recent immigrants, with no Icelandic ancestry and adopted
people where information on biological parents is not available, I can
make a few interesting observations.

The current population is a little over 300.000. If I pick any two
currently living people at random, I have to go back 6.5 generations on
the average to find a common ancestor. I have never had to go back
more than 10 generations. This means that *a* common ancestor for any
two people in this population can be found 200-300 years ago. If I
look for the most recent ancestor, I have to go back only 500 years to
find one - a Catholic bishop, who had 5 or 6 children with his
mistress.

While this is slightly interesting, it is also fairly irrelevant for
this discussion - here as elsewhere genalogical records simply do not
go back far enough to actually prove anything about the original
subject.

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