One big happy family.

garinda · 10-01-2007, 01:36

Ok, I can't sleep, so I thought I'd share my thoughts with anyone who may be remotely interested.

We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen great great grandparents, thirty two great great great grandparents, and so on, and so on.... the numbers doubling each generation.

If we average that there are four generations per century, in a thousand year period we will all have 1,009,511,627,776 direct ancestors.

I hope my maths isn't wrong. I think it's 2 to the power of 40, and I had to get Google to do it, because my calculator didn't have enough digits. Any way it's a huge number.

Since the population of the UK in 1000 AD was roughly 1,420,000 that means we all must be related in some way, and I suppose we should count ourselves lucky not to have eleven fingers or webbed toes.

Any comments, or corrections to my mathematics, will be appreciated.

KIPAX · 10-01-2007, 01:43

I thought it was common knowledge that if you go back far enough then we all must be related......eh bruv

AccyAlec · 10-01-2007, 01:50

LOL garinda.. think your right but i cant comment as im not good at maths

Do we all believe that we come from 'adam and eve'... im not convinced lol

Alec

Neil · 10-01-2007, 05:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by AccyAlec

Do we all believe that we come from 'adam and eve'..

Or Adam and Steve in some cases

entwisi · 10-01-2007, 05:36

Ah but you forgot all those marauding foreigners, (Vikings/Saxons/etc).

WillowTheWhisp · 10-01-2007, 07:52

Even with the marauding foreigners there aren't enough ancestors for us all to have had different ones. You've also got to take into account the people who never had offspring for whatever reason and the genepool shrinks even further.

You don't need to go as far back as Adam & Eve, remember Noah and his family were the only ones to survive the flood so he's the grand daddy of us all.

jedimaster · 10-01-2007, 11:05

just cant bring myself to believe i may be related to some of you lot lol.

Neil · 10-01-2007, 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

You don't need to go as far back as Adam & Eve, remember Noah and his family were the only ones to survive the flood so he's the grand daddy of us all.

I've told you before not to believe everything you read

garinda · 10-01-2007, 11:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by entwisi

Ah but you forgot all those marauding foreigners, (Vikings/Saxons/etc).

All of us will have ancestors who came to the British Isles both before and since 1000 AD. Over that thousand year period all of us will have over a billion direct ancestors, or how ever big that number is, I can't read it, compared with the figure of under a million and a half people who inhabited Britain then.

The whole population of the British Isles in 1000 AD, is similar to that number that now lives on the Isle of Wight today.

Gayle · 10-01-2007, 13:04

Hasn't it been proven (god knows how) that we all descend from one woman in africa? Of course, no one knows where she came from though!

I also read somewhere (slightly contradictory to the first sentence) that there are three main lines in the world - the african line can be traced back millions of years and the chinese/eastern line can be traced back equaly as far but the white race can not be traced back quite as far - which is where all the alien theorists come in!!!!!

Due to migration and interbreeding we're all a mixmatch of the three race lines!

garinda · 10-01-2007, 13:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gayle

Hasn't it been proven (god knows how) that we all descend from one woman in africa? Of course, no one knows where she came from though!

I also read somewhere (slightly contradictory to the first sentence) that there are three main lines in the world - the african line can be traced back millions of years and the chinese/eastern line can be traced back equaly as far but the white race can not be traced back quite as far - which is where all the alien theorists come in!!!!!

Due to migration and interbreeding we're all a mixmatch of the three race lines!

Yes scientists say that the whole of mankind's DNA can be traced to one woman in Africa. They named her Elizabeth, which doesn't sound very African, and although Biblical, anything like the name Eve.