Talk about not moving too far away from your relatives

[Ichingcarpenter]

Two Germans Share World's Longest Family Tree
The Two Men Recently Discovered They Were Related Through a 3,000-Year-Old Ancestor

The men, Manfred Huchthausen, a 58-year-old teacher, and Uwe Lange, a 48-year-old surveyor, had known each other from living in the same village, about half a mile apart from each other.

But they never knew they were related through a 3,000-year-old shared ancestor.

They only recently found out they are both true descendants of Bronze Age cave-dwellers who lived in the area three millenniums ago.

Thanks to a DNA test on well-preserved Bronze Age bones found in the Lichtenstein cave in the foothills of the Harz Mountains in Germany's Lower Saxony, the men can now claim to have the longest family tree in the world.

"Before the discovery, I could trace my family back by name to 1550," Lange said. "Now, I can go back 120 generations."

Lange comes from the small village of Nienstedt, which is near the excavation site.


http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=5386347&page=1

[Skittles]

1. uh huh

for 120 generations, everyone they THINK is the father IS the father......r i g h t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Actually, it is easier to prove bastardy the further back you go

as it was important in terms of inheritance. As someone who has done genealogical research for over 30 years, I can assure you that it is a rare family tree without a few "natural" children around. Or as one seasoned genealogist once said--"If your family tree doesn't contain at least one horse thief and one lady of the evening, you haven't done a complete search!"

[kestrel91316]

11. I've got a hired assassin. Doesn't get much better than that!

Doan mess wit da kestrel!

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. In our research we discovered that hubby and I are related to each other. And

my grandfather was not only my cousin but also his own. You gotta love life on a small island.

[unpossibles]

14. I believe it's based on a DNA test, right?

not just written records.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. doesn't surprise me

when my brother visited the Black Forest village where our great-great grandfather and his wife came from, he asked if anyone with their surnames still lived there. Seems the entire town, more or less, had one surname or the other!

[grantcart]

3. I thought they had already found a common ancestor to all humans at about that time

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. A female in Africa, I believe

and they said her myocardial DNA matched some 90% of humans alive today. Needless to say, she was nicknamed "Eve". I think the thing about the fellows in the OP is the idea that the same family has lived in the same neighborhood for thousands of years.

[Howzit]

7. I think you mean Mitochondrial DNA...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Yes

thank you for putting me straight on that. I've heard the term used but don't believe I'd seen it in print, so was unsure of the spelling.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. Mitochondrial DNA, you mean

Mitochondria (singlular, mitochondrion) are actually symbiotic organelles in our cells, genetically separate and distinct from our own human DNA. Human sperm have mitochondria, but the father's contribution is quickly destroyed when a zygote begins to develop; as a result, mitochondria are almost always inherited exclusively from the mother. Mitochondria seem to reproduce asexually by fission, much like bacteria, making them genetically very conservative and ideal for multi-generational matrilineal studies.

The Wikipedia has an interesting article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Yes, thank you

I've often heard the term used, but rarely, if ever, saw it in print--and when I tried a phonetic approximation, spell check gave me the word it did.

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. "millenia"

Don't they spell check their work?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. I remember seeing a Nova (or some other PBS documentary) about a

9,000-year-old male skeleton discovered in a cave in England. Researchers managed to extract DNA from the skeleton, and they then checked the male villagers to see if anyone matched. Indeed, there was one villager who was a distant relative of the skeleton.

This goes to show how Old World settlement patterns can be very old indeed.

This was first brought home to me when I was a student in Japan, taking a course on classical literature. A student asked the professor about something she didn't understand from a literary work that dated from 1100AD.

"Our ancestors believed..." the professor began.

That's when it hit me. I knew intellectually that Japan has been continuously settled by the same principal ethnic group since about 200BC and has had no major immigration since then. However, that professor's statement brought it home to me that most likely every Japanese student in the class (i.e. everyone except me) was descended from people who lived in Japan in 1100AD.

In 1100, my ancestors could have been anywhere in Europe and maybe elsewhere.