I had to just pop in here, you guys are so smart and it makes me feel sort of like a dirty dishwater blonde bimbo. Yikes. Do enjoy reading all of it though. Thanks. Becky n AZ On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 9:08 PM, Sam Sloan via <genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com> wrote: > It is now an accepted scientific fact (as much as any facts of this nature > can ever be recognized) that all men alive today are descended from just > one man who lived 60,000 years ago. > > The reason we can be sure of this is that all men have a Y-Chromosome that > they pass down to their sons, but not to their daughters because females to > not have a Y-Chromosome. > > By doing DNA studies of this Y-Chromosome, we can see that all men have a > similar Y-Chromosome with only minor variations. This tells us that they > all have a common origin. > > This means that if we could go back in time we could find that common > origin who is the DNA father of us all. > > We know that this man had at least two sons. The reason we know this is > because if he had only one son that son would be the most recent father of > us all, and not his father. > > What we are now seeking is the MRCA which means Most Recent Common > Ancestor. There are no doubt many men who are the fathers of us all, but we > want to find the one man who is the most recent. > > There were other men before him and he also probably had brothers. However > the family lines of those other men died out. Their Y-DNA became extinct, > except through him. Only the Y-DNA of the Most Recent Common male Ancestor > survives in all of us today. > > We call this man who is our most recent common ancestor our DNA-Adam. The > Bible tells us that Adam was the first man. However, he was not really the > first man. He had a father and a grandfather and he probably had brothers. > However, he was the most recent man from whom all of as are descended on > the straight male line. > > Through DNA studies, we are able to calculate the rate at which Y-DNA > mutates. There are minor mutations all the time. Once we know the rate of > mutation and we know how far different is our DNA from the DNA of other > men, then we can calculate backwards and determine how many generations ago > the man who is the father of us all lived. > > By this method, it has been determined that the man who is the father of us > all lived 60,000 years ago, give or take a few thousand years. > > This was not the first man. The first human that we know about that we can > definitely say was human was Lucy who lived three million years ago. There > must have been people around long before Lucy, but we have not found their > bones yet. > > We also know where Lucy lived. She lived in what is now Ethiopia. > > Can we find out the earliest female? This is more difficult. Women pass > down mtDNA. A woman gives her mtDNA to all of her children, both male and > female. It does not mutate much and does so slowly. Thus, we do not know > how long ago the earliest female who is the mother of us all lived. We > would call her DNA-Eve. However, it is even possible that not all women > have a common origin. Perhaps a long time ago there was a man who had a > chimpanzee as a girlfriend. Cross-breeding is not impossible and happens > more often than we realize. We can be almost certain that the DNA-Adam and > the DNA-Eve did not know each other or sleep together. DNA-Eve probably > lived thousands of years earlier than he did. > > This book does not bear a date of publication, but we know it had been > published by 1952. It was sold by street-vendors standing on the street on > 125th Street in Harlem. By then, the general wisdom was that there were > four races of man, Black, White, Chinese and American Indian. Black people > did not like being called Black. They preferred to be called Negro. > > Actually, the Blacks are not black nor are the Whites white. The Chinese > are not yellow and the American Indians are nor red. These are just > convenient terms people used. > > However, we know that 60,000 years ago there was just one man who is the > father of us all. In general, a male generation lasts 30 years. So, there > have been 2,000 generations between the Y-DNA Adam and the men today. The > changes in skin color and other physical attributes took place just within > those 2,000 generations. > Sam Sloan > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GENEALOGY-DNA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >