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#162904 11/03/06 04:42 PM
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Quote:

yes, i know every living person is related to (pick famous personage from 2,000 years ago) but the odds are i am less related to any native americans (since i have european heritage)




Yes, as Twain said, "there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics".

I may be mis-remembering this number, but as I recall it's about 23 generations (460 years) ago when you have more ancestors in that generation than the the total population of Europe at that time. Therefore, if a person's ancestry is all European back to 1540, then his parents must be at least 21st cousins (and probably much more related than that).

#162905 11/03/06 07:59 PM
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Synchronistically, I was just in my car running an errand and listening to a BBC Radio program about a huge gathering of people named Jones in Wales trying to break a Guinness record. There was a geneticist on explaining how these Joneses were all descended from men whose first name was John when the English forced the Welsh to take "regular" last names. He said they were no more likely to be related than the average degree of relatedness for Britain which is 6th cousins.

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