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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