About 8% of men in Central Asia inherited their Y-chromosome from Genghis Khan, which means that roughly a gazillion people have the Mongol ruler in their family trees. Michael Stusser—author of The Dead Guy Interviews—snagged a sit-down with the prolific potentate.
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of Arkansas had their 17th child on Thursday—a daughter named Jennifer.
"We'd love to have more," Michelle said, referring to baby girls. "We love the ruffles and lace."
Jennifer joins siblings: Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2. [Link]The Duggars were featured in a series of Discovery Health programs called "14 Children and Pregnant Again!," "Raising 16 Children," and "On The Road With 16 Children." I haven't seen any of these, but I promise to start watching if the kids learn to build motorcycles or swim with sharks.
Russia has been suffering from a declining birth rate, but nobody told Aleksei Shapoval's kids.
The retired steelworker celebrated the arrival of his 101st grandchild this week, a girl named Tatiana, in the village where he lives with most of his huge family.
Mr Shapoval now has 50 granddaughters and 51 grandsons from his 11 sons and two daughters in what is believed to be a record for Russia. They range in age from 26 years to three days.
Asked if any of his children had failed to produce offspring, he replied swiftly: “Yes, Yakov. He has only two.” [Link]
Civil War veteran James Kindred Williams and wife Elizabeth had their first child in 1869. 27 years and 15 children later, Elizabeth had had enough.
In 1896, Williams filed for divorce, alleging that his wife "refused to give to him what God and nation said he deserved."James soon after found a woman who would give him what he deserved, and six additional children besides.
Lizzie Williams, who moved in with one of her children, did not respond to her husband's allegations.
The courts did not resolve the divorce until March 15, 1898, when a judge "dissolved" the marriage "on account of voluntary abandonment." [Link]
Art historians are trying to spot the face of Mary Alford in the works of Victorian painter William Powell Frith. Photographs of Mary—Frith's longtime mistress—were made public only yesterday.
An upmarket version of the picture book game Where's Wally? is to be found in checking masterpieces such as Derby Day and The Railway Station, using two grainy images of Mary which make their public debut today. One shows the dimpled, round-faced Mary on an undercover picnic with Frith; the second is a family group after the death of his first wife, when he finally made Mary what the Victorians called "a respectable woman".
The pictures have been revealed by an anonymous descendant of one of seven children Frith fathered illegitimately with Mary, while maintaining his official family, including another 12 children, a mile up the road. [Link]
Bao Wenguang's mother found a century-old document that helped establish his descent from Genghis Khan.
The document was found in 2002 when his mother was tidying up the courtyard in the family's ancestral home, but Bao is only now making the find publicly known.
The "Bao family tree", is 6 meters long, 1.45 meters wide and together with other documents [cover] a period of more than 200 years. [Link]
The Embassy of Mongolia and the Mongolian Community Association in Washington, D.C., want to erect a monument to that most prolific of conquerors, Genghis Khan.
Michael Johnson of the D.C. Office on Planning said that the groups, like any others wishing to erect a statue on city land, must apply to the agency's Commemorative Works Committee with detailed plans and designs. He said "greater weight" usually is given to honorees with a local connection but declined to comment on Genghis Khan. [Link]
Clyde and Ethel Higginson—residents of a retirement home in Sandy, Utah—made the evening news for having more descendants than anyone else in the home.
The Higginsons boast 12 children (from separate marriages), 64 grandchildren, and when you include all the posterity from those who married into the family, including all their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren - it equals 258. [Link]They have a ways to go before they match the record of Samuel Mast of Pennsylvania, who reportedly was survived by 11 children, 97 grandchildren, 634 great grandchildren and 82 great great grandchildren—824 descendants in all.
Tom Robinson—the Florida accounting professor supposed to be descended from Genghis Khan—has been featured in hundreds of newspapers, and was offered a free trip to Mongolia by a movie company. Then he made the mistake of asking for a second opinion.
The discrepancy occurred because Oxford Ancestors only tested Mr. Robinson's Y chromosome at nine sites, ones at which the DNA mutates quite often between generations. Finding a match between Mr. Robinson and Genghis at seven of nine sites, Dr. [Bryan] Sykes assumed that was good enough to declare a direct relationship, since he had never seen such a match outside of Asia, he said.Despite the headlines reading "Prof Not Direct Descendant of Warlord," Robinson might still be a direct descendant of Khan. This proves only that he didn't descend through a unbroken line of fathers and sons. Believe it or not, several people in the world don't even have a Y chromosome. In fact, there's about a 50-50 chance you're one of them.
But the major branches of the Y chromosome family tree are defined by mutations at sites that change very seldom. Oxford Ancestors did not check the slow-mutating site that defines the branch to which Genghis Khan belongs. [Link]
The only things I am willing to conclude based on the weight of the evidence at this point is:
- My Y-Chromosome ancestors were likely nomadic horsemen in Central Asia/Eastern Europe, but not Genghis Khan (and I will not be taken that previously scheduled trip to Mongolia).
- Vikings may have been involved.
- While I may be the closest match to the Mongolian DNA from west of the Caucasus mountains in databases at this point in time, other closer matches are likely to be found some of whom will be haplogroup C3. There goes any inheritance!
- I am an accountant (not practicing), living in the Miami area.
Tom Robinson, a University of Miami accounting professor, has become the first man outside of Asia to prove his descent from Genghis Khan. His Y chromosome is an exact match with the Mongol warlord's for eight of nine markers (one mutation is to be expected over 800 years).
Update: Always wait for a second opinion.He has little in common with his infamous ancestor. He is not a keen horseman. Though a Republican, his politics are moderate. And while Genghis Khan may have fathered thousands of children, Professor Robinson and his wife, Linda, have no offspring.
“I’m not sure we have too many similarities,” he said. “I obviously haven’t conquered any countries, and though I’ve headed up accounting groups, I’ve done nothing as big as Genghis Khan.
“I’m proud to have such an interesting ancestor. I’ve been reading a lot about him since I found out about the link, and it does seem that his reputation is a little unfair.
“He conquered a lot of countries, but he had a pretty good system of government.” [Link]
From Reuters.com:
Scientists discover most fertile Irish male
Tue Jan 17, 2006
By Siobhan Kennedy
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Scientists in Ireland may have found the country's most fertile male, with more than 3 million men worldwide among his offspring.
The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland.
His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16 million descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
From The New York (N.Y.) Times:
Scientists Link a Prolific Gene Tree to the Manchu Conquerors of China
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: November 1, 2005
Geneticists have identified a major lineage of Y chromosomes in populations of northern China that they believe may mark the bearers as descendants of one of the Manchu conquerors who founded the Qing dynasty and ruled China from 1644 to 1911.
Because the founder of the lineage lived some 500 years ago, according to calculations based on the rate of genetic change, he may have been Giocangga, who died in 1582, the grandfather of the Manchu leader Nurhaci. At least 1.6 million men now carry this Manchu Y chromosome, says Chris Tyler-Smith, the leader of a team of English and Chinese geneticists.
[snip]
The Mongol Y chromosome presumably spread so widely because of the large number of concubines amassed by Genghis [Khan] and his relatives. The Manchu rulers, though not in Genghis's league, also were able to spread their lineage so far, Dr. Tyler-Smith and his colleagues suggest, because of being able to keep many concubines.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
From China View:
Confucius has over 3 mln descendants worldwide
JINAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Confucius, a great Chinese thinker in ancient China, has more than three million descendants around the world, according to recent statistics.
[snip]
Kong Deming, vice director of the Qufu Confucius pedigree research center said that with Qufu as its main concentration region, the descendants of Confucius are now over three million, with 2.5 million on Chinese mainland, 100,000 in Republic of Korea, and many also in the United States and Malaysia and Singapore.
He also noted that the new version of Confucius family tree book will be published in 2007.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
You might know how many ancestors you have through five, ten, or even fifteen generations. But how many descendants will you have, say, 900 years from now?The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Test allows you to measure your virility, fertility, or non-sterility against that of the Mongol ruler himself. He's credited with 16 million male descendants—and those are just the ones descended through direct patrilineal lines.
Just answer a few (sometimes personal) questions about yourself and your immediate family, and a system of calibrated algorithms and space-age nanotechnology will compute the number of your descendants through 32 generations. You'll also get a customized "family tree" laying out in graphic detail your genetic legacy, allowing for "sterility, birth rates, death rates, disease, drug abuse, nitwitism, and accidents."
You might want to exaggerate on the questionnaire: I told the truth, and learned that I am "no Mongol warlord," which we all know is untrue.
From ksl.com (of Salt Lake City, Utah):
Utah Man Celebrates Being a Grandpa 140 Times
September 9th, 2005 @ 4:07pm
Brooke Walker Reporting
Sunday is National Grandparents day and most grandparents would agree, there is a special joy that comes in filling that role. Brooke Walker introduces us to a Utah man who has felt that joy 140 times.
Today Homer Whitlock won a contest for having the most grandkids -- something he couldn't be more proud of. Homer told us he never thought he would live to be 87-years old. But looking back on it, he's sure glad he did.
While the names don't always come, Homer can tell you something special about nearly every one of his 140 grandchildren.
Homer Whitlock: "It's a lot easier than you think. If you can remember a few, they just come naturally. I can name most of them but it takes a while some times."
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
From Forward (of New York, N. Y.):
A Reunion of Biblical Proportions
By MORDECHAI SHINEFIELD
August 19, 2005
Think you are a direct descendant of King David? Then make sure you have an invitation to his family reunion.
The Eshet Chayil Foundation is planning the first Eternal House of David Family Reunion, to be held in 2007. It's a three-day event in Jerusalem for people who believe they are descendants of King David.
[snip]
One group that is not invited, despite tradition or even genetic lineage, is the gentiles.
[snip]
Though one wonders how the group accounts for the fact that David's first ancestor, Solomon, allegedly had 700 wives and 300 concubines — many of whom decidedly were not Jewish — [project coordinator Joseph] Meyersdorf's position is firm.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
From The Arizona Republic:
All Ben's childrenThis is spooky. Just last week I coined a new word for such a reunion.
The story of a patriarch, 7 wives, 44,000 Johnsons and 1 humongous reunion
Jaimee Rose
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 3, 2005 12:00 AM
SALT LAKE CITY - All of the cousins are color-coded.
The big Benjamin Franklin Johnson family reunion starts with a registration desk, name tags and a pile of bright Avery dot stickers from OfficeMax - seven colors for seven wives. You get a green dot on your name tag if you are descended from his first wife, Melissa ("the legitimate one," her family jokes). If you're from Sarah Melissa, the fifth wife, there's a golden-yellow dot, which is causing a slight fuss as it's barely different from the buttercup-yellow dot for the third wife, Flora Clarinda. Mustn't be mistaken for her kin since she divorced him back in 1848, and they don't talk about that. They ran out of red dots for the fourth wife's family. The woman had eight children, after all.
[snip]
Sometimes, instead of using those colored dots, they tack pictures of the wives to trees at a park, and when you find "your" wife's photo, there's your family tree.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
From ananova:
Free meal promotion for relatives of Genghis Khan
A London restaurant chain is offering customers free DNA testing to see if they're descended from Genghis Khan.
Restaurant Shish has promised free meals for any found to be related to the notorious Mongol leader.
The unusual promotion is to mark the Mongolian government's decision to allow citizens to have surnames for the first time since they were banned by the communists in the 1920s.
[snip]
It is estimated that 17 million people worldwide, including the British Royal Family, Iranian Royalty, and the family of Dracula, are direct descendents of Genghis Khan.
[Read the whole story]
