Some of the comments from my last post got me thinking about ancestors and distance relatives and just how complicated the whole thing is.Most of us don't really stop to think about the number of ancestors we all have. We usually only think about our parents, grandparents and maybe, our great grandparents.
We don't often think about the staggering number of couples that got together......couples that had offspring that had to be produced for us to be here.
Every person has, of course, two parents and four grandparents. You've also got eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents and an amazing thirty two great-great-great-grandparents. And everyone of those thirty two great-great-great-grandparents of yours had thirty two great-great-great-grandparents themselves.
Go back three or four hundred years and you could have more than a thousand direct ancestors. That's more than five hundred couples that had to have had the children they did for you to be here.
Any change in that and you wouldn't be here.
I've tried thinking about just how many descendants those five hundred couples could now have. The thought is so overwhelming, I can't really fathom the possibility.
1 comment:
Staggering when you think about it.
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