News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Everyone with Blue Eyes May Descend from a Single Human A... by im3w1l on Saturday April 22, 2023 @09:56AM (#35666647)
Well you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents etc. Eventually inbreeding (if you can call it that when it's really distant relatives) starts becoming a factor so that some person may take up multiple "slots" in your family tree. But either way, it would seem that if you go far enough back every single human will be an ancestor of yours.

Edit: Just to clarify what I'm trying to get at is that there are probably quite a lot of Ancestors That Everyone Descend from.

Re:Everyone with Blue Eyes May Descend from a Single Human A... by denton-scratch on Saturday April 22, 2023 @10:26AM (#35666894)
Agreed (FSVO "quite a lot"). But the same argument applies to blue eyes.
Re:Everyone with Blue Eyes May Descend from a Single Human A... by SideburnsOfDoom on Saturday April 22, 2023 @10:30AM (#35666933)
> But either way, it would seem that if you go far enough back every single human will be an ancestor of yours.

The nearest "ancestor of all living people" is calculated to 150 000 to 300 000 years ago, depending on which one you're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

Re:Everyone with Blue Eyes May Descend from a Single Human A... by irrational on Saturday April 22, 2023 @10:51AM (#35667130)
Or, 2,000 years ago - if by “all living people” you mean everyone alive right now.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-mo...

Re:Everyone with Blue Eyes May Descend from a Single Human A... by denton-scratch on Saturday April 22, 2023 @12:26PM (#35668183)
Oh, that's interesting.

My father researched a family tree; not rigorously, like Mormons do, but he spent about a decade tramping around the country, visiting graveyards and inspecting parish records. I have a bound volume of the tree. He claimed descent from (a) William The Conqueror, (b) Lady Godiva, and (c) Charlemagne.

I don't have his records, only the tree. The links are pretty ropey, especially when you reach further back. And he imported big chunks of it from trees built by others. His conclusions seem pretty implausible, but that article makes them seem a bit more plausible.

Re:Everyone with Blue Eyes May Descend from a Single Human A... by im3w1l on Saturday April 22, 2023 @11:29AM (#35667542)
Well given that blue eyes is neither neither mt-dna or y-chromosome, I made an argument about the autosomal "normal dna" that is inherited from both sides.