NEw Worlders, whose family has been here longest?

[Lul Thyme]

Well my first post did mention you already said that.
I was just trying to clarify it for him.

And actually its estimated WAY ealier thatn 70K if you look for male ancestors, because they can breed so much more.
Its just female is easier to be sure about because of mitochondria, but Ive seen most estimates for common male ancesotr under 10K.

[KrazyHorse]

I find a common male ancestor at 10 k to be highly unlikely. After all, there are still pure Native Americans, and their ancestors were cut off before that date.

The pattern of migration after ~70 k when humans first left Africa makes anything after that date unlikely if the ancestor is for the entire globe (outside subsaharan Africa).

I think you've misread your sources.

[KrazyHorse]

On the other hand, I find it quite reasonable to claim that perhaps 70% of Europeans+Asians have a single common ancestor at 10k

[KrazyHorse]

The example I like to give here is that knowing simply that one of my grandparents is a Highland Scot makes it likely that I'm descended from William Wallace's grandfather...

[Ben Kenobi]

Richelieu:

It's complicated, but here's how I understand things.

I have all 4 grandparents born in Canada, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. All consider themselves English Canadian.

Of the four, starting with my dad's side, his dad's parents both came from a small village in Mazuria in the south part of East Prussia just before the first world war.

My dad's mom, she has her father coming from England, and her mother's family goes back as far as we can trace it to Perth Ontario. Neither native nor french, but British.

For my mom's side, her mom's dad came from the US, and her mom's mom came from Manchester England around the turn of the century. Her mom's dad came from North Dakota, but going back another generation, my mom's grandfather's father came from Norway, and my mom's grandfather's mother came from Denmark.

For my mom's dad, his father was an Irish Communist, from Dublin, and my mom's dad's mother is the line that I was talking about in my earlier post. This family we don't know when they came over, but we have records of a Sexsmith born in Kingston with a birthdate of 1752. That's as far back as we have gotten. There is a whole line of Smiths and Sexsmiths, which I don't think are either native nor french, yet somehow they ended up in Kingston before the conquest. It's a mystery.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

KH and Lul:

There are tens of millions of Mayflower descendents scattered all across the United States, and probably Canada as well. A good number of these families no longer live in New England, and haven't for hundreds of years.

And yeah, I'm well aware of genetic tests which can link virtually anyone to anyone else in the world, but thats not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the general trend among North Americans to place their family histories in line with whatever "founding fathers" myths are present in their areas, despite common sense, migratory patterns and numeric evidence that would suggest otherwise.

You guys are taking the genetic approach, which is completely different. You may as well go one step further and say that we're all related to every other living organism on the planet - or the universe - because in most senses that is true. For instance, the Sun is my great (x-infinity) grandfather - did you know that?

But yeah, I know what you guys are saying, and I'm not necessarily disagreeing. I more have an issue with BS, self aggrandizing family histories. No one wants to admit (or discover) that their ancestors were most likely poor, peasant immigrants who probably changed their names anyways when arriving at Ellis Island or Halifax or wherever.

[Kontiki]

Poor, peasant immigrants who didn't change their name.

[Seeker]

I read a natl geo article a while back about just how many central asians may be descendants of the prolific genghis khan, it was some ridiculous number.

I think what Lul was referring too was a recent attempt to find a male side equivalent to 'mitochondrial eve'.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
As Krazyhorse explained, thats where youre wrong.
For another example, actual studies have shown that over one person in two in France is descendant from one of their King.

This is very true, I read that if you go back far enough, you have ancestors scateted all over the the place. and most of the people living in a large area will be your ancestor. People all over the mediterranean may have an ancestor who was a black mercinary that settled in Rome 2000 years ago and took a local wife. The chance that a person has a monarch or two or more in thier ancestry is very high, even though they wouldn't have married outside the aristocracy, because of nonaristocratic mistrisses. The reason such clames are ignored is because out our bias to concentrate only on the paternal line back from father to grandfather to great grandfather, mostly because of the importance of eldest male inheiritence in noble families.

[Odin]

Mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA is good for tracking human migrations, But all this Mt Eve and Y Adam talk is annoying, they are a result of how Mt and Y DNA is passed down, It fools people without a proper knoledge of the subject to think that other modern humans living at that time were not our ancestors, which is obviously false.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
No one wants to admit (or discover) that their ancestors were most likely poor, peasant immigrants who probably changed their names anyways when arriving at Ellis Island or Halifax or wherever.

I'd much rather have those types of people as my ancestors than the likes of Myles Standish and the Puritans.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Seeker
I read a natl geo article a while back about just how many central asians may be descendants of the prolific genghis khan, it was some ridiculous number.

16 million.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn No one wants to admit (or discover) that their ancestors were most likely poor, peasant immigrants who probably changed their names anyways when arriving at Ellis Island or Halifax or wherever.

I admit it proudly. But my family didn't change their name.

And are you suggesting that the people in this thread either are unaware of family history going back a mere 2-3 generations or are delibrately lying about it?

[Bosh]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
No one wants to admit (or discover) that their ancestors were most likely poor, peasant immigrants who probably changed their names anyways when arriving at Ellis Island or Halifax or wherever.

My ancesters were (mostly, with the exception of the German master cabinet-maker and the Italian black-sheep of a rich family who ended up as a poor cobbler in America) peasant immigrants, some of whom cahnged their names anyways when arriving at Ellis Island (I think that my mom's maiden name is the name of the village in Germany that her family came from, not their original family name).

[Dinner]

No name changes as far as I know though I'm 7/8's British so the names were already acceptable in the US. Even my 1/8 French side was pretty acceptable in 19th century America.

My maternal grandfather’s family came from French peasants who couldn't repay a debt so they got sent to New France where they became owners of a leather tannery (a dirty smelly business but profitable) as well as a inn/pub in Trios Riveres, Quebec. They took part in a French rebellion against the British crown though so when the rebels lost they moved to Chicago. My mother's mother's family were Yankees so mostly English in origin while my dad's family is entirely working class Scottish. My great great grandfather and his father were both machinists in the early to mid 19th century which was something of a mild class life while my great grandfather joined the British army as a quarter master shortly before the Boer War and he later was stationed in France during WW1 though he was a middle aged supply NCO instead of a infantryman. My mother's grandfather graduated from Notre Dame University in 1910 then later joined the army in 1918 at the age of 30. He suffered from post traumatic stress disorder due to his experiences in WW1 though in the 1920's and 30's he became very wealthy by starting a neon sign business. Until the mid 1950's when he sold his business he had the exclusive contract to make neon signs for several large beer companies in Illinois.

During the depression when the rest of the country was barely surviving my mother's grandfather had a big house and a chauffeur to drive the family Duisenberg. Families seem to rise and fall in prosperity fairly quickly.