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From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] 60 Minutes Genetic Genealogy Segment
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 01:08:47 EDT


My favorite part of the 60 Minutes transcript was:
.
>Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University,
>has studied this new field. He worries that people don't
>realize just how many ancestors they actually have.
.
>"Eight generations ago both you and I had 256
>great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents,"
>Greely points out. "It doubles every generation.
>So you've got two parents. You have four grandparents.
>You have eight great grandparents. Sixteen great-great
>grandparents. And it adds up fast. It adds up so fast in
>fact that if you go back 20 generations you've got over
>a million grandparents."
.
>1,048,576 to be exact. And in each generation, DNA testing
>can provide information about only two of them.
-----------
If we believe Hank Greely's and Leslie Stahl's math, going
back 40 generations would give us more than one trillion
ancestors in that generation which would be about 10 times
the number of people who have ever lived on earth.
.
See:
_http://www.prb.org/Content/ContentGroups/02_Articles/0ct-Dec02/How_Many_Peopl
e_Have_Ever_Lived_on_Earth_.htm_
(http://www.prb.org/Content/ContentGroups/02_Articles/0ct-Dec02/How_Many_People_Have_Ever_Lived_on_Earth_.htm)
.
Maybe it is only Stanford law professors and news correspondents
"who don't realize just how many ancestors they actually have."
.
Kathy J.



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