If we knew everybody's complete family tree, what would be the minimum number of people that must be passed through to connect any given two people on Earth along their family trees?

kristian88

If we had everyone's complete family tree then I think we would find out that quite a few people on Earth are not related at all. So there would be no minimum for some. Oct 02 03, 2:11 AM

Gnomon

Since everybody in the world is descended from the first human, whoever that was, everybody is related. But nobody agrees on exactly when the first human lived. Since the American Indians went to America about 10,000 years ago, it must be before that, so assuming there are American Indians whose families never intermarried with Europeans, they must be separated by more than 10,000 years from the rest of the world's population. Assuming an average of 20 years per generation, that's 500 generations, so these people would be separated by at least 1000 from the rest of the world's population. The actual figure could be a lot higher. Oct 02 03, 5:22 AM

gmackematix

But it only takes one marriage from the tribe to someone outside of it in the last 10,000 years to reduce that number significantly. I think it could well be fewer. Oct 02 03, 8:41 AM