To find a point in history at which everyone who still has living descendants is the ancestor of literally everyone on earth, you have to go back no farther than a few millennia. On how we're all much more closely related than you think. - ThreadSky

jonnelledge.bsky.social • 464 days ago

To find a point in history at which everyone who still has living descendants is the ancestor of literally everyone on earth, you have to go back no farther than a few millennia.

On how we're all much more closely related than you think.

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mckelvie.bsky.social•464 days ago

Yeah, it's always so absurd when someone says "I can trace my family back to [famous upper class person/royalty]".

sharona.bsky.social•464 days ago

But can they? That’s the point really. I was a paid genealogist for a while and the thrill is as much how you’re descended, not just from whom. Everyone’s family story is unique, the rises and falls in fortune and sheer chance of how we all came to be here - I love it, can you tell?

mckelvie.bsky.social•464 days ago

My point is really it's used to imply legitimacy to class hierarchy by, wouldn't you know it, upper class people. :)

sharona.bsky.social•464 days ago

Oh well, I don’t know any of those but I must say, they have immaculate records which is why it’s relatively easy to trace a line if there’s wealthy people in it

The poor might as well not have existed

sharona.bsky.social•464 days ago

PS I am also William the Conqueror’s 26x gt granddaughter, bite me

joeinaustralia.bsky.social•464 days ago

I keep wondering about how this can work. There are and have been some relatively isolated lineages, e.g. those at the extremities of Australia, South America, and the Arctic. It’s not impossible for them to have common ancestry within that time frame, but can it be certain?

jonnelledge.bsky.social•464 days ago

Above my paygrade I'm afraid - I assume it's a combination of research into actual genetics, and also maths? (e.g. you only need a handful of people to move between Australia and New Guinea 2,000 years ago for the lines to spread out)

sallyinfrance.bsky.social•464 days ago

Which means that the whole notion of frontier barriers and immigration resistance is nonsense - especially as climate change drives half the earth’s population from one hemisphere to another, as it must in time…we are one planet, one people 🤷🏻‍♀️

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