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From: "Dennis L. Haarsager" <>
Subject: [DNA] Steve Olson article
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 07:30:07 -0800


John Flinn writes...
>Number of ancestors per person could be no more than 3,200 if our
first >ancestor was 40,000 years ago. Do the math, using 25 years = one
generation, >and a male and female for each parent generation. (ie: 40,000
div by 25 = >1,600 generations times two, for mother and father =3,200
ancestors. Don't >confuse ancestors with descendants. okay?

The math is not 2x1,600, it's 2^1,600. In other words, you get to more
than a billion ancestors (if they were all "non-related" people) in only 30
generations and quickly get to more ancestors than people in a given
geographical area.

Paul Renan writes...
>people moved around Europe as much as the writer indicates. My own maternal
>British family pedigree, which begins in 843 ( as far as official records
are
>concerned, but extends beyond that to the 5th century), clearly demonstrates
>minimum movement within a very small part of Wales for over 1000 years.

I maintain a genealogy database of 18,000+ names from the Reformation
forward for one rural parish in Norway and indeed there was little
intermarriage with the "outside" before transportation systems improved in
the late 1800s. Most marriages happened between people living within
walking distance and there are a large number of low single-digit (1st,
2nd, 3rd) cousin marriages (you can't marry 'em if you can't meet 'em).

However, to say there is little intermarriage is not to say there's
none. Of the "outsiders," most are from the bordering areas of adjacent
parishes. But there are also others who bring genetic material from great
distances. Generally, these were from parish ministers (often born or
educated in Denmark), hired soldiers (from Latvia, Schleswig and Scotland),
and from families of the German merchant class who settled in
Trondheim. After 5-10 generations, these "true" outsiders which were the
gateway for genetic material in single-digit generations back from the
present from distant locations are found in a large percentage of family
trees (a late 16th century Scot in my case). Further back, of course,
there were medieval crusaders, vikings and their thralls who mixed things
up a lot.

Dennis

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