NEWS: Find Out Your Great(x10000) Grandfather

[Florida accountant Tom Robinson] knew that his great, great-grandfather had come to the United States from England _ but beyond that his research drew a blank. So he turned to the burgeoning field of "bioarchaeology," having his DNA tested to see what it revealed about his origins.



He was in for a surprise. According to a British geneticist who pioneered the research, Robinson appears to be a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the Mongol warrior who conquered vast tracts of Asia and Europe in the 13th century.



Robinson said he was startled when he received a call from the firm Oxford Ancestors about a surprising ancestor uncovered by his DNA tests.



"My first impression was, 'Oh no, who is it' _ imagining it was Adolf Hitler or something like that," said Robinson, 48. "So I was actually pleasantly surprised."



Robinson thinks his forebear, whose name has long been a byword for violence and cruelty, has had a bad press.

Some scientists are less certain the chromosome points directly to the Mongol chief.



"It's a little bit of a stretch as far as I'm concerned," said Peter Underhill, a Stanford University geneticist who thinks the distinctive Y chromosome would have been present in many members of Genghis Khan's closely interrelated tribe.



"Genghis Khan had this marker, but Joe Smith in the Genghis Khan army also had this Y chromosome."



Proven or not, Robinson's link may well make him a celebrity in Mongolia, a vast country of 2.5 million sandwiched between China and Russia renowned for its rolling grasslands, sturdy horses and nomadic herders.

An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data have found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical [to Genghis Khan]. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today.

Spica said:
OHMYGOSH!
I want to be related to THEM!

Spica said:
OHMYGOSH!
I want to be related to THEM!

mrcrisp said:

damn, beat me to it.