Could we all be distantly related?

[benny1982]

I do hear the annoying "We probably all are related to your famous distant cousin if you go back far enough" enough times, when the clear difference is, you can only be removed by 6 or 7 generations instead of 80 or 90 generations for others.

I found I am distantly related to a lifelong family friend who has been friends with my mum for 40 years and I went to school and was friends with her children. We share a common ancestor back in the 1670s in Leigh On Sea, Essex. She asked me to help with the family tree and I traced her great gran back to Leigh On Sea, and found her great gran and my great grandad were distant cousins. 1670 is much closer than say 800 or 900 or more years ago.

They say that if a British person and a Chinese person were able to trace their ancestors back far enough, they would find a common ancestor. Don't know if that is true or not. Eddie Izzard did his DNA recently, and he descends from African tribes who left 1000s of years ago.

 

[Ladybird1300]

I also did a DNA test, but it seems I'm not related to Eddie Izzard, because I am not descended from African tribes, although it's claimed everyone originated from there.
My DNA tells me I am descended from mostly Western Europeans including Britain and Ireland......all known as Hunter gatherers.... a small percentage from Scandinavia, which then in turn means a small percentage from the Caucases and an even smaller percentage from Asia.
A small percentage from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and Greece.
I also know my parents are not related, although I did find a distant marriage with both sides of the family.
I think Scientists are still studying the emergance of "Modern Humans" because we know more about Civilisations in Europe the Middle East and Africa, than from Asia and the far East, or even the America's.

Amanda

 

[p.risboy]

I guess scientifically we are all related somehow, as much of 'modern genes/DNA' connect. Somewhere I heard, a carrot carries about 60% of our DNA. Does that make me part vegetable.:2fun::2fun:

Go back a 100,000 years ago, I doubt very much there were many remnants of the Great British(as we know it) population around, as it was covered by a great sheet of ice of varying thickness. And at that time, we were connected by land to the rest of Europe.

Then the question is, when did the 'our' connected area become depopulated and repopulated, and by whom, and from where, before and after the ice sheet.

Then we had all the 'tribes of europe' over thousands of years, travelling backwards and forwards even when the land bridge was gone.
Tribes and conquerors ebbed and flowed like the tides, over 100's and thousands of years.

Religiously, we were all spawn of an incestuous connection(Adam & Eve and Cain & Abel), many times over, according to some religious doctrines.

I for one, have never bothered who I am related to famously, and never bothered to look. The likely hood being, in my case, is the nearest I'd get is a 6th cousin 10 times removed, or something like that. So that makes them perfect strangers in my eye's, even though there is a 'blood' connection.


Steve.