OT: grandparents who raped and pillaged

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters mertz at gnosis.cx
Tue Dec 17 19:52:30 EST 2002


topic... we don't need no stinkin' topic...

claird at lairds.com (Cameron Laird) wrote previously:
|Incidentally, don't let my social surname fool you; as near as anyone
|can tell, my ancestors were the ruled clansmen, not lairds themselves.

Actually, it's almost certainly both.

I read an interesting article earlier in this year that did some
statistical analysis of geneology.  I wish I could remember the link,
but not right now.

The general idea was that once you realize that every person has *two*
parents, and take a general look at the degree of migrations and
exogamy, ancestors start to come from every class, ethnic group, and
geographic region.  It happens more recently in history then people tend
to think.

The figures I remember suggested that EVERY person of European descent
has as an ancester EVERY European (with a surviving line) who was alive
in 1200 A.D. Projecting to the world as a whole, you have to go back
about 2000 years back to be descended from EVERY person alive at the
time (who was fecund).

So it means, just as a matter of statistical inevitability, I am
descended from Nefertiti, and Confucius, William I (along with other
c.l.py readers--all from the first two, most from the last).  But
imagining those famous (rich and powerful) ancestors is a common
obsession...  I (and everyone) am equally descended from illiterate
peasants and slaves.  No one seems to want to trace their geneology to
ditchdiggers, but obviously a lot more of anyone's ancestors were poor
and oppressed than rich oppressors.

FWIW, (some of) your ancestors not too far back are from any
ethnic/racial group you want to think of.  So people with bigotries
against any groups are also descendents of those groups.  (I don't mean
c.l.py readers as such bigots, of course, just as a general point).

Yours, Lulu...

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