A recent claim in the UK's Daily Telegraph - as pointed to by today's "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" - was that half of today's European men are descended from a single man who lived some 4,000 years ago. Leaving aside what happened to all the boys descended from the many thousands of other men alive at that time - let alone this man's close relations (mass genocide?) - how can people make such sweeping generalisations based on the DNA of just 1,200 people? I could better understand if the study was of a few million people. The same goes for this "Eve" person we are all meant to be descended from. Was she the only female alive at the time? Did she wonder around Africa killing off all the others? Chris

Oops, sorry for the duplicate reply, Chris -- I meant to post this to the list the first time... __________________ Hi Chris, Good questions!  I haven't read the Telegraph article, so I'm only shooting from the hip here.  I assume that the claim is made in light of the fact/inference that y-chromosome SNP mutations must occur first in a single individual, to be passed on to that individual's descendants.  I would suppose the claim is made in regard to what was formerly called the R1b haplogroup.  As to the point of making the claim on the basis of only 1,200 samples -- well, that's statistics for you.  Far more that 1,200 people have (since?) had their y-chromosome DNA tested, and although strange "new" (aka, "previously undiscovered") haplogroups are occasionally found, and although subgroups of "old" established groups are CONSTANTLY being discovered as commercially available tests become more comprehensive, the main result still stands -- again, that's statistics for you. On the question of what happened to the descendants of all the other men alive at the time, I believe the answer lies in the notion of the "random walk" (also known as the drunkard's walk); Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this.  To put it briefly, all lineages tend to die out over time except the ones that don't (this is only a half-facetious summarization).  This has interesting implications not only in terms of carriers of DNA mutations, but also in terms of surname bearers (and, consequently, our individual one-name studies).  The Plant brothers (of GOONS fame) have written a number of interesting JOONS articles with the idea of the random walk as an implicit subtext. -Mark Bunch (GOONS #6223) ---------------------------------------- > To: [email protected] > Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 08:19:12 +0100 > Subject: [G] DNA conclusions? > From: [email protected] > > A recent claim in the UK's Daily Telegraph - as pointed to by today's > "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" - was that half of today's European > men are descended from a single man who lived some 4,000 years ago. Leaving > aside what happened to all the boys descended from the many thousands of > other men alive at that time - let alone this man's close relations (mass > genocide?) - how can people make such sweeping generalisations based on the > DNA of just 1,200 people? I could better understand if the study was of a > few million people. > > The same goes for this "Eve" person we are all meant to be descended from. > Was she the only female alive at the time? Did she wonder around Africa > killing off all the others? > > Chris > > > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc: > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I do not think that we are talking here about the direct male line all the way. I am probably descended from some 2^120 males over 4000 years, before subtracting duplicates. That ismuch more than the entire population of the world since the start of the human race! Brian Yare Yare #5831

Having now read the original article I now see that I was wrong, and they really are claiming direct descent via the Y chromosome. So back to the drawing board for me! Brian Yare #5831 Yare

Well, the last ice age would have killed many but even so ... -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christopher Gray via Sent: 2016 April 27 08:19 To: [email protected] Subject: [G] DNA conclusions? A recent claim in the UK's Daily Telegraph - as pointed to by today's "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" - was that half of today's European men are descended from a single man who lived some 4,000 years ago. Leaving aside what happened to all the boys descended from the many thousands of other men alive at that time - let alone this man's close relations (mass genocide?) - how can people make such sweeping generalisations based on the DNA of just 1,200 people? I could better understand if the study was of a few million people. The same goes for this "Eve" person we are all meant to be descended from. Was she the only female alive at the time? Did she wonder around Africa killing off all the others? Chris _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Hi Chris Eve first. There were lots of women alive at the time, but only one whose female line descendants are still alive today (mother’s mother’s mother’s mother, etc). Many of the others probably have descendants, but at some point daughters only had sons, so that female line died out. The man from whom half of today’s European men are descended is probably, as someone else has pointed out, from the R1b halpogroup. This is by far the most common haplogroup in Western Europe. So, in reality, the sample is much much larger than 1,200. The point is that male line descents die out all the time. You must have found this in your research. 4,000 years is time for thousands of generations, so plenty of opportunities for a man to have no sons but to have some daughters, whose descendants may still be around. This is probably a very inadequate summary of the argument, but frankly it would take more time than I have to spare to explain it in more detail. Whole books have been written on the subject. See the Guild wiki for some suggestions. June Willing Guild of One-Name Studies member no 2117 Willing/Willings One-Name Study http://one-name.org/name_profile/Willing/ Willing/Willings DNA Project https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/willing Dominicus One-Name Study http://one-name.org/name_profile/dominicus/ > On 27 Apr 2016, at 08:19, Christopher Gray via <[email protected]> wrote: > > A recent claim in the UK's Daily Telegraph - as pointed to by today's > "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" - was that half of today's European > men are descended from a single man who lived some 4,000 years ago. Leaving > aside what happened to all the boys descended from the many thousands of > other men alive at that time - let alone this man's close relations (mass > genocide?) - how can people make such sweeping generalisations based on the > DNA of just 1,200 people? I could better understand if the study was of a > few million people. > > The same goes for this "Eve" person we are all meant to be descended from. > Was she the only female alive at the time? Did she wonder around Africa > killing off all the others? > > Chris > > > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc: > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message