One big happy family.
 

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.

Re: One big happy family.
 

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

Re: One big happy family.
 

Re: One big happy family.
 

Or Adam and Steve in some cases :D

Re: One big happy family.
 

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

Re: One big happy family.
 

Re: One big happy family.
 

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

Re: One big happy family.
 

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

Re: One big happy family.
 

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.

Re: One big happy family.
 

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!

Re: One big happy family.
 

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.:D

Re: One big happy family.
 

all from one women... oh dear.... proven? all i see is 2 accyweb members saying it.... source please?

Re: One big happy family.
 

I dont think blaming burnley helps :)

Re: One big happy family.
 

Glass houses and stones may be relevant here :)

Re: One big happy family.