You've got two parents, each of your parents had two parents and so on and so on
so does everybody else alive today. You don't have to go too far back before the amount of people required to pass genetic material on to you exceeds that of the population of that time.
( Kroney, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:33, 1 reply, 15 years ago)

REALLY
what the...i don't even
( Lisette von Falcon, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:37, Reply)

By the time you go back 15 generations, the number is up to 65536 people
and 15 generations is what, about 300 years? You're still only in 1711.
( Kroney, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:44, Reply)

Go back another 5 generations and the number's at over 2 million
by now you're in 1611 and the population of the UK is only about 6 million at that point. Two more generations and at about 1540, you're up to 8 million people required and the populaton stands at about 5 million people.

Genghis Khan lived in the 1250s or thereabouts.
( Kroney, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:47, Reply)

go on

( Lisette von Falcon, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:48, Reply)

No point, everybody alive today is related to Genghis Khan.
And also Joe the cess pit cleaner. Fact.
( Kroney, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:49, Reply)

aw
but i was really starting to get interested in what you were saying
( Lisette von Falcon, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 13:55, Reply)