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We’re all human: Scientists create world’s biggest family tree linking 27 million people OXFORD, United Kingdom — The world’s biggest family tree linking around 27 million people has been created by scientists. The genetic model combines thousands of modern and prehistoric genomes, providing new insight into key events in human history. The breakthrough is a major step towards mapping the entirety of human relationships, with a single lineage that traces the ancestry of all people on Earth. The family tree also has widespread implications for medical research, identifying genetic predictors of disease. “We have basically built a huge family tree,...

Kezia Obama, widow of the Kenyan Barack H. Obama, has passed away at the age of 81. A native of Kenya, Obama moved to the village of Bracknell in the United Kingdom and was receiving treatment there when she died. Cause of death was not disclosed. In 1956, Kezia married Barack H. Obama and as Darrogh Roche of Newsweek reports, the Kenyan “later” married the American Stanley Ann Dunham, mother to former U.S President Barack Obama, born in Hawaii in 1961.The Kenyan Barack H. Obama, born in 1934, didn’t have much to say about Ann Dunham. In all his...

The largest ever study of global genetic variation in the human Y chromosome has uncovered the hidden history of men. Research published today (25 April) in Nature Genetics reveals explosions in male population numbers in five continents, occurring at times between 55 thousand and four thousand years ago... analysed sequence differences between the Y chromosomes of more than 1200 men from 26 populations around the world using data generated by the 1000 Genomes Project... involved 42 scientists from four continents... Analysing the Y chromosomes of modern men can tell us about the lives of our ancestors. The Y chromosome is...

A new look at the human Y chromosome has overturned longstanding ideas about its evolutionary history. Far from being in a state of decay, the Y chromosome is the fastest-changing part of the human genome and is constantly renewing itself.

The Book of Genesis puts Adam and Eve together in the Garden of Eden, but geneticists’ version of the duo — the ancestors to whom the Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA of today’s humans can be traced — were thought to have lived tens of thousands of years apart. Now, two major studies of modern humans’ Y chromosomes suggest that ‘Y-chromosome Adam’ and ‘mitochondrial Eve’ may have lived around the same time after all. When the overall population size does not change (as is likely to have happened for long periods of human history), men have, on average, just one...

New research published in Science shows that our most recent common female and male ancestors could have been alive at the same time.Thousands of years ago, somewhere in Africa, lived a man who – probably – had no idea that he, among all the other men in his group, would go on to become humankind’s most recent common male ancestor. Scientists would call him “Adam.” Now, a new paper published in the journal Science significantly narrows the time during which Adam could have lived – about 120,000 to 156,000 years ago – putting him in about the same time period...

Previous genetic research has indicated the existence of two ancient modern human individuals who passed their genes along to all humans living today... "Mitochondrial Eve"... between 190,000 and 200,000 years ago, and ... "Y-chromosomal Adam", between 50,000 and 115,000 years ago. Now, a team of researchers led by Stanford University's Carlos Bustamente and David Poznik have redefined the ranges for Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve, placing them at 120,000 to 156,000 years ago and 99,000 to 148,000 years ago, respectively. The most significant finding relates to the relative timing of their existence... ...The researchers compared Y-chromosome sequences among 69 men...

National Public Radio recently interviewed Trinity Western University biologist Dennis Venema, who stated his belief that humans did not descend from Adam and Eve.1 Venema, an evangelical evolutionist, claimed that genetics studies show "there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple."2 Do the data really contradict the biblical account of human history? "Given the genetic variation of people today, [Venema] says scientists can't get that [starting] population size below 10,000 people at any time in our evolutionary history," NPR reported.2 But this claim fails for three reasons. First, it relies on the presumption of "evolutionary...

The most robust statistical examination to date of our species' genetic links to "mitochondrial Eve" -- the maternal ancestor of all living humans -- confirms that she lived about 200,000 years ago. The Rice University study was based on a side-by-side comparison of 10 human genetic models that each aim to determine when Eve lived using a very different set of assumptions about the way humans migrated, expanded and spread across Earth... "Our findings underscore the importance of taking into account the random nature of population processes like growth and extinction," said study co-author Marek Kimmel, professor of statistics at...

May 2, 2000 The Human Family Tree: 10 Adams and 18 Eves Related Articles Genetics: Gene TherapyGenetics: Genetically Modified FoodsGenetics: The Human Genome ProjectThe New York Times on the Web: Science/HealthMapTracing Human History Through Genetic MutationsChartFollow the LineagesForumJoin a Discussion on DNA Research By NICHOLAS WADE he book of Genesis mentions three of Adam and Eve's children: Cain, Abel and Seth. But geneticists, by tracing the DNA patterns found in people throughout the world, have now identified lineages descended from 10 sons of a genetic Adam and 18 daughters of Eve. The human genome is turning out to be...

FamilyTreeNow.com aggregates information obtained from public records such as marriage licenses, divorce filings, birth and death records and property tax records....accuracy is not guaranteed. The site also outlines legal restrictions against using the information for harassment, fraud, or illegal purposes. Some say it's no big deal, since many of us freely disclose personal, private information on a regular basis. We're the ones who put it out there. Others see how it could help find relatives with whom you've lost touch over the years. If you're bothered by the concept, you can opt out and have your name removed. In my...

The most recent common ancestor of all humanity lived just a few thousand years ago, according to a computer model of our family tree. Researchers have calculated that the mystery person, from whom everyone alive today is directly descended, probably lived around 1,500 BC in eastern Asia. Douglas Rohde of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and his colleagues devised the computer program to simulate the migration and breeding of humans across the world. By estimating how different groups intermingle, the researchers built up a picture of how tightly the world's ancestral lines are linked. The figure of 1,500...

Hundreds of millions of Asian men alive today could be descendents of just 11 dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years ago, according to researchers at the University of Leicester in the UK. The study, published in the European Journal of Human Genetics, looked at the Y-chromosome - the chromosome passed from father to son - in around 5,300 Asian men from more than a hundred different ethnic groups and nationalities. Most Y-chromosome types are extremely rare and so the prevalence of common Y-chromosome types amongst those they found in the Asian men they tested suggests hundreds of millions...

There really is no such thing as having “only” one or two children, because having babies is not a numbers game. Rather, it has to do with welcoming souls into the world, however many there may be. Sadly, Margaret Sanger, who came from a large family herself, failed to see babies as individuals with the potential to improve society and instead saw them as probable burdens to themselves and society. “The immorality of large families lies not only in their injury to the members of those families but in their injury to society,” wrote Sanger in a chapter titled “The...

Thinking of getting the kit for a Christmas gift.

How do you feel about "family tree" homework? My kids have had to do this repeatedly. To me, this seems like something that should be done at home on one's own time.

MSM reporters repeatedly comment about how the anti-war Ned Lamont, now official Democrat Party candidate for U.S. Senator from Connecticut, is paradoxically a wealthy businessman. If these MSM reporters had any research skills, they would report both his financial and ideological inheritance. Ned Lamont’s father, Corliss Lamont, was a brilliant, very wealthy by inheritance, communist fellow-traveler through the ‘30’s and ‘40’s and ‘50’s, who continued in such anti-U.S. foreign policy crusades on to his death in 1995, having opposed the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 1934, Corliss Lamont identified himself to former communist Max Eastman as a “Truth Communist,” saying...

Indonesia's Lost World: Shaking Up the Family Tree October 28, 2004 by David Keys Homo floresiensis skull (© Peter Brown) New archaeological discoveries by Australian and Indonesian scientists on the Indonesian island of Flores are revealing that until at least 13,000 to 12,000 years ago, modern humans--our species, Homo sapiens--shared this planet with a totally different species of human being--a three-foot-high dwarf hominid with physical features usually seen as dating from 1.5 to 4 million years ago. The scientists, mainly from Australia's University of New England and University of Wollongong, have found the skeletal remains of up to seven individuals...

Sister gave birth to baby, who died PORT ARTHUR -- A 19-year-old man will be tried in September on a charge of prohibited sexual conduct with his younger sister, who gave birth to a baby found dead in a high school band bag. The girl, who was 15 when she gave birth, has been charged in juvenile court with capital murder. An adult certification hearing for her is set for June 10. The maximum sentence that can be considered in juvenile court on a capital murder charge is 40 years, prosecutor Randi King said. In the adult system, she could...

John Kerry...a man for all seasons.