Posted on 05/09/2013 3:00:00 PM PDT by billorites
A genetic survey concludes that all Europeans living today are related to the same set of ancestors who lived 1,000 years ago. And you wouldn't have to go back much further to find that everyone in the world is related to each other.
"We find it remarkable because it's counterintuitive to us," Graham Coop, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California at Davis, told NBC News. "But it's not totally unexpected, based on genetic analysis."
Family researchers have long known that if you go back far enough, everyone with a European connection ends up being related to Charlemagne. The concept was laid out scientifically more than a decade ago. Now Coop and University of Southern California geneticist Peter Ralph have come up with the evidence. Their findings were published on Tuesday in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Advertise | AdChoices
"Anyone alive 1,000 years ago who left any descendants will be an ancestor of every European," the researchers say in an FAQ file about their study. "While the world population is larger than the European population, the rate of growth of number of ancestors quickly dwarfs this difference, and so every human is likely related genealogically to every other human over only a slightly longer time period."
Those conclusions are based on a survey of genetic sequences from more than 2,000 individuals spread from Ireland to Turkey. Ralph and Coop used computer software to search for telltale strings of DNA coding that are common to wide segments of the European population. The length of such strings can be used as a statistical yardstick to determine relatedness: Longer strings suggest that a common ancestor lived more recently.
The researchers were surprised to find that even individuals living as far apart as Britain and Turkey shared a chunk of genetic material 20 percent of the time. To explain that degree of genetic commonality, the researchers say those pairs of individuals would have to have a huge number of common genealogical ancestors 1,000 years ago — a number that takes in everyone who was alive in Europe back then.
Coop stressed that common genealogical ancestors are distinct from common genetic ancestors. "If you go more than eight generations back, you've got so many ancestors back there, it's unlikely that all of them have contributed genetic material to you," he explained.
People who live closer together tend to be more closely related, as you'd expect. The survey also found that the degree of relatedness varied among present-day European populations: Italians tended to have lower levels of relatedness, to each other and to other Europeans. That may be because there was a long history of distinct cultures in that region, the researchers suggest. Eastern Europeans, in contrast, showed more relatedness than the average, perhaps due to the Slavic expansion into that region more than 1,000 years ago.
Teasing out all those relationships will be the focus of future research, made possible by the proliferation of genetic data and analytical tools. "In the next couple of years, we'll have these kinds of studies applied globally," University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer, who was not involved in the PLOS Biology study, told NBC News.
The cold, hard genetic evidence points to a warm and fuzzy fact. "It underlines the commonality of all of our histories," Coop said. "You don't have to go back many generations to find that we're all related to each other."
There continue to be Sa'ami who do not yet have a real close relationship with Europeans ~ and then there are the Fulbe, Berbers, Cherokees, Yakuts and others who are closely related to Sa'ami but not other Europeans in general.
There are still other genetic isolates ~ the upland families in Switzerland show signs of that because nobody moves in, although they move out!
Mathematics must be counseled with reality ~ not all the connections work simply because nobody moved in or out of thousands of semi-isolated villages for thousands of years.
coz he was a major domus and
I am a major doofus.
Logical Fallacy. Correlation is not causation.
I am a mutt.
Father’s parents were Scot/Irish but mother was Swedish by way of Finland to US. (other groups involved too)
Migration patterns in US evolved in patterns too.
The label “Caucasian” is not very descriptive.
Norse invations.
Asians migrated to Europe.
It is simply not that tight on the gene pool.
Batty?
Yep
Thank goodness Barry was hatched on Uranus.
Most white folks are not Caucasion anyway.
the only things i like from france is baguettes and french onion soup.
All moslems are related if you go back just 100 years, scientists say
Damn, I miss the 1970's.
and those 'push-up' bras...
Well, I know my ancestor, Johann der Wilde [John, the Wild] von Wallmerode Buewinghausen contributed his share of DNA to the European gene pool. I have said many times that I am related to all Europeans through this man. He lived in the 15-16th century and was married with 3 daughters, but when he died he had acknowledged 72 illegitimate children. I wonder how many more unacknowledge children he had?
He was a minor nobleman in the northern Rheinland. Maybe you too could be a descendant of his?????
Correct.
Well if he was a minor nobleman, most likely his ancestors were nobleman from all around Europe, as they tended to travel and intermarry, and in time all the cycling around meant you are related to notable nobles all over Europe. Mine is a DuBois who was a Hugoenot and ultimately, yes I can go back to Charlemagne as an ancestor.
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