One of the newest and popular programs on PBS follows the
genealogy of celebrities – recently Stephen King.
Not long ago my cousin applied to a commercial DNA
service to determine her family roots – her countries of origin. To me (especially
since I have no idea of my paternal line,) the idea of following my ‘roots’
means virtually nothing.
I have always considered the whole process of genealogy
research an exercise in vanity. Our
blood lines, are in fact, counted exponentially – doubling with each prior
generation; so the idea of following only one line back to a
patriarch/matriarch is like picking one number at bingo.
It is nice to know that my great-great grandfather from
Kentucky served in the Union Army and died at Shiloh. But the fact is, there were eight great-great
grandfathers four generations back and I have no idea who, or what the other
seven were doing.
Going back ten generations would produce 1,024
grandparents equally sharing my DNA – 512 tenth generation grandfathers and 512
grandmothers.
Twenty generations back my
and your predecessors numbered 1,046,016 (one million, forty-six thousand and
sixteen.) We share equal DNA from our
blood line in that generation – no one outranks another. It makes you wonder what the world population
was twenty generations ago, and to what percentage of that world we would show
a direct linage?
And then there is the DNA test. I had a blood transfusion after a car
accident. I wonder how that effects my
DNA – another whole set of unknown line?
At what point are we all kin?
the Ol’Buzzard
