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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1997-12 > 0881024390


From: "Todd A. Farmerie" <>
Subject: Re: Descendants of Charlemagne
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 19:59:50 -0500


Diana Trenchard <> wrote:

> I'm enjoying the discussion re how many of us can
> claim/not claim or hope to claim descent from Charlemagne,
> and would like to add another point.
>
> Remember a few years back when that Stone Age Man was found
> frozen in the Alps? A British medic/scientist did his
> genotype. I'm writing from memory but I'm pretty sure that
> from his data-base he only found ONE present-day person
> whose genotype PROVED a descent from the Stone Age Man.
> She was a female in Bournemouth of Irish birth (I think).
> I don't know how big the data-base of genotypes was,
> ?hundreds or thousands.

While this is not the place for details, I should point out that it is
impossible to prove descent from anyone using DNA. At most you can
generate a strong statistical argument, but this is not proof (just ask
OJ). Even such a statistical argument requires the DNA of every
generation along the way (there is too much recombination in every
generation for the techniques to skip generations). The only things
that can be shown over longer distances come from the analysis of
mitochondrial or Y-chromosome DNA (in males only), neither of which
significantly recombine. These only allow one to say that two
individuals, no matter how far divided in time, came from the same
maternal or paternal lineage, and not that one descends from the other.

> As the Stone Age Man lived several thousand years ago, I
> would have expected his genes to have been dispersed
> through a large part of the population by now, which
> they apparently weren't. So perhaps a large number of us
> have NOT got Charlemagne in our ancestry - he lived a mere
> 1200 years ago.

Most would have dispersed in a few generations, unless they were shared
by the mates of his descendants (the exception being mtDNA and Y). No
analysis of Charlemagne would help, unless someone thinks they descend
in either the male line from him or the female line from his mother or
her maternal lineage.

ta

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