I’m not sure about the exact fraction of Asian people that have genetic indicators of being his descendants allegedly, but how are researchers determining that a “father” whose DNA they don’t have is the specific “father” of all these descendants? Are they doing the family tree inference from relatives’ DNA they have like the golden state killer? Or is it basically some guy from around Mongolia from around Khan’s time fathered this many descendants, so we assume it’s Khan because… he did most of the sexual assaulting? I get that he had lots of wives and historical records of around the time allege he had thousands of children (although I suspect without a detailed accounting, I.e. a guess), but you don’t have to be married to have a child and the mongols had no shortage of opportunities to make children with lots of women if they were on a military campaign. Why can’t it have been one of his generals? Why wouldn’t it be *more likely* to be one of his generals that he dispatched ahead of him on additional reconnaissance missions like Subutai?
In: Biology
The thing about that fun fact about Ghengis Kahn is that pretty much a time from his time who has any living descendents at all would have about as many as he did. As you go back in your family tree you have exponentially more grandparents at every generation back, but there are also generally speaking fewer people as you back in history. Go far enough back and any currently extant blood lines are just crossing over the same people over and over again. Kahn isn’t so far back that it’s literally everyone on the continent whose family trees (but it might not be that much further back either) but it’s likely anyone from his time ore slightly further back would have about as many living descents of thru have any at all.
Latest Answers