We are ALL Inbred

I'm sure anyone reading this blog has noticed that the number of relatives in each successive generation is getting larger.  Generation 7 took many months to complete and all posts started with, "Joe Schlabotnick, my 4th great grandfather...... "  The vague notion that each generation doubles in size may lead many to believe that after a while there could be thousands of ancestors in our family tree.  That notion is true in the sense that the Hicks/Barker family tree is going to get way out of hand in a few generations, but un-true in the sense that it is a vast underestimation of the reality inherent in doubling numbers for 30 or 40 generations.  Let's look at the facts:

We all have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparent.... (ie 2^n  relatives in any particular generation, with n being the number of the generation)  So at generation 40 we have 2^40 ancestors in that generation.  That's 1, 099, 511, 627, 776 relatives in that generation alone.  Roughly a Trillion.

How long ago was 40 generations?  If we assume 25 years average per generation that's 1000 years (around the year 1013 AD).

Here is the problem:  There were no where near a trillion people living in the year 1013.  There haven't been a trillion people in all the generations throughout all of human history.  It is estimated that the total number of people who are around today and who ever were around number about 100 billion.  The total number of people on earth in the year 1013 was maybe 250 million.  That's only enough population to  account for 250 million/1 trillion of any one person's 40th generation ancestors or 0.025%.

So it is mathematically certain that we are all wildly inbred.  Even if we happened to be related to every single person who lived in the year 1013, then those 250 million relatives must have filled the role of the one trillion relationship slots available.  Not much of a tree.  More of a telephone pole.

This is what the above facts mean:

1. We are all thoroughly and profoundly inbred over the last 40 generations.  Yee Ha.
2. There are relatives somewhere back in time that are related to both your mother and father.
3. We all share multiple common ancestors if we go back far enough.
4. We are all related to Kings and Slaves
5. Every time a genealogical line ends (by either becoming lost in time or merging with another line) I rejoice a bit inside because it makes the job of documenting the family tree that much easier.  If only Mom and Dad were brother and sister it would save all kinds of time!

Until next time, Ya'll take care cousin.