Re: ANCESTRY QUESTION?
Shirlene Pearson (pearson@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu)
18 Jan 1995 22:38:11 GMT
Ulf Lindroth (ulf@innet.com) wrote:
: >How can we possibly have more ancestors in a coexisting generation than
: >the total known population of the earth?
: >I know for a fact that I have a mother and a father who each has a mother
: >and a father, etc... The direct ancestral chart would look like so:
: >Generation Population
: >1 2 (Mother and father)
: >2 4 (grandparents)
: >3 8 (greatgrandparents)....
: >20 1,048,576
: >30 1,073,741,841
: >Going backwards it does not take too long to run into a problem.
: >What am I missing? Please email your response to me. Thanks
: >Art Decker
: >decker@spt.tec.sc.us
: Guess:
: 1: Many lines die out at some point.
: 2: Other lines rejoin with distant relatives.
Still other lines join with not so distant relatives. It has
only been fairly recently that first cousins were not allowed to marry.
Even at the turn of the century in the U.S., you still saw cases
(many) of first cousin marriages, and such marriages are still allowed in many
countries outside the U.S.
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