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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-05 > 1178131395
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Subject: Re: [DNA] Double or single cousin?
Date: Wed, 2 May 2007 14:43:15 EDT
In a message dated 5/2/2007 7:20:41 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:
> I think the problem varies - which is why it *isn't* simple as you move up
> the
> generations. At grandparents it closely approximates to the 'simple'
> solution
> but, as you move up the generations you get to the point where you might be
> attempting to divide a finite number of genes by a greater number of
> ancestors. That's impossible and, somewhere before that point, the
> approximation will have broken down completely.
The number of genes (whateve that is!) is not the pertinent number, since
each gene can be an amalgamation of material from multiple ancestors. But that
brings up an interesting point -- how many points of interest are there in our
genome? It's certainly more than the number of genes -- even a single SNP can
be informative, and there are potentially billions of SNPs.
Ann Turner
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