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The Library
What does our genetic distance mean?
For this discussioin, let's completely ignore everything except our
family name and our genetic distance.
Let's take out all discussion of people who assumed the Earl's name from his
land and let's ignore
the discussions of limitations on distance. With Niven's and Ian's example and
with my example with the
McQuiston family, we know that genetic distances in our clan go back to at least
a 3. Let's assume that
many of the people in our clan are, in fact, related.
Based on Steve and Stan's mutation rate of about once every
300 years, you could say the following --
300 yrs per mutation
x 2 genetic
distance (GD)
600 yrs ago
1400 AD
(based on the McQuiston connection and a distance of
2)
600 yrs per mutation
x 3 genetic
distance (GD)
900 yrs ago
1106 AD
(just after The Conqueror)
600 yrs per mutation
x 4 GD
1000 yrs ago
400 BC
Now let's invert the logic and work backwards from the last
Ice Age.
18,000 yrs ago
/ 300 years per mutation
60 Genetic Distance
So now we know, for the sake of this argument, that somewhere between a genetic
distance
of 0 and the last ice age, every one of our participants will share a common
ancestor because
each of our participants is far less than a distance of 60 from each other. In
face, most are
averaging a distance of 8 from each other, meaning most of us connect about 2000
BC, a number
I also find completely absurd. I think the folks who know the most about
DNA for Genealogy
will soon have to revise their mutation theories.
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