Are you related to Genghis Khan? Odds are higher than you might think.

[RedCloud]

I was viewing Ancients Behaving Badly and I noticed Genghis Khan behaved like a lion. A lion will kill the young of the area it intends to claim and supplant them with its own. Some reports have Khan murdering upwards of 32,000,000 folks and the number of offspring and the numbers have just grown astronomically.

"Then a study in 2003 suggested that up to 16 million people worldwide — and 8 per cent of Asian men — were descended from Genghis Khan, and Professor Sykes decided to trawl through his database of approximately 25,000 male clients for a match.

The link is revealed by the Y chromosome, a packet of DNA that determines male sex, which is passed down from father to son. Men who share a Y chromosome are invariably descended from the same man at some point in the past, and the accumulation of mutations can be used to date the common ancestor. Women do not have a Y chromosome, so they cannot be tested in the same way, although millions are likely also to be descended from the warlord.

The 2003 study found that large numbers of Asian men from the regions that once made up the Mongol empire shared a single Y chromosome, and that this originated in a man who lived in the early 13th century.

Genghis Khan lived from about 1162 to 1227 and fathered hundreds or even thousands of children as his armies swept across the continent. This makes him by far the most probable source of the common chromosome. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article669552.ece

[MikeE]

1. Genghis, you are the father

:silly: Sorry I couldn't help myself.

[JVS]

5. And thus the studio, Maury, and the audience would meet their ends.

[leveymg]

2. How did he find time for all that looting and pillaging?

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. Some people would think so. n/t

[Donnachaidh]

4. I caught that episode too

It would be pretty cool to have him as an ancestor LOL!

[The Midway Rebel]

6. I doubt tha ol' Genghis ever found his way to...

Washington County, Kentucky.

[FloridaJudy]

7. My mother was born on the opposite shore of the river

From where Genghis Khan was born: the river divides Mongolia from Siberia.

The family resemblance is astonishing!

[EFerrari]

8. I think I'm descended from Columbus AND Montezuma.

Maybe that's why I get so oppositional. lol

[RedCloud]

9. Hola EFerrari

I was in México and the antropólogos me dijeron que no es Montezuma sino Moctezuma.

Expect more changes as time goes by. I believe Cuernavaca is in for a renaming soon.

[a la izquierda]

11. It's spelled about 4 ways,

all of which are pretty acceptable.

[Hannah Bell]

10. why would it necessarily be genghis? why not some randy soldier of his?

[piratefish08]

12. To Do: 1) Change last name to Khan.

2) Lay my claim to untold fame and fortune.

3) Party like it's 1999.