August 2, 2009
statisically, could every man of European and/or Asian descent be descended from Genghis khan?
kathedsall asked:
i heard that 1 out of every 200 males in Eurasia are probably descendants of Genghis khan. i also know that anyone who lived in Europe before 1400 AD and lived to have kids is the ancestor of everyone of European stock today. so, could Europeans be descended from Genghis khan at least statistically? is this probable?
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i heard that 1 out of every 200 males in Eurasia are probably descendants of Genghis khan. i also know that anyone who lived in Europe before 1400 AD and lived to have kids is the ancestor of everyone of European stock today. so, could Europeans be descended from Genghis khan at least statistically? is this probable?
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Comments on statisically, could every man of European and/or Asian descent be descended from Genghis khan? »
It is probably too soon and some populations don't mix that much with outsiders. He could be an ancestor to many of them though. It is pretty simple math. If there are an average of 4 generations per 100 years, that would make about 32 generations past. if each had 3 children on average, that would be about 500,000 but he supposedly had 10 children so it would be a few million descendants. You could cook the numbers but it seems unlikely he would be direct ancestor to most of them. Give it another few hundred years and he would have most people with him, or most anyone else of that time, as an ancestor.
There was a recent NPR article about a study combining DNA sampling and statistics that estimated the number of direct descendants of Genghis Khan around today…I'm sure you could go to
their website and find it.
Historically, it's very hard to trace the bloodlines of Genghis Khan. He lived thousands of years ago, they do not have accurate records of him or his family. The Mongols were a Nomadic people who moved around a lot.
Nobody knows where his grave is. It's all just an estimate.
All they know is the general area where he came from. They took DNA from people in those villages.
Some studies show that up to 20% of people in Asia are descendants of Genghis Khan or his clan.
Genghis Khan, or Temüjin was born around 1162 in a Mongol tribe near Burkhan Khaldun mountain and the Onon and Kherlen rivers in modern day Mongolia, not far from its current capital Ulaanbaatar.
He became a powerful leader, and united the Mongol clans. They conquered China, Central Asia, the Middle East, Russia, and much of Eastern Europe.
According to legend, he slept with and impregnated many of the widows and daughters of his fallen enemies.
And he conquered a lot of lands …
Including Russia, Turkey, and Poland. The Mongols later merged with the Seljuk Turks who later conquered the former Yugoslavia, North Africa, and the Arabian peninsula.
So yes, it's very possible that many populations have Mongol ancestry in them, and maybe related to Genghis Khan.