# Is Julius Caesar's bloodline traceable to present day? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725 "2010-06-11T00:57:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/21 "2010-06-11T17:45:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Isn’t like 25% of all Central Asian peoples descended from Genghis Khan? 100% of Central Asian peoples, and in fact 100% of all humans in the world, are descended from Genghis Khan. Which is unremarkable, given that there are billions of swineherds and subsistence farmers who can make the same claim. What’s remarkable about Genghis is that 8% of the population of that part of the world is descended from him _in the purely male line_. That is to say, if you start with anyone in central Asia, and look at their father, and then their father’s father, and then his father, and so on, 8% of the time you’ll end up with Genghis. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/22 "2010-06-11T17:52:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 100% of Central Asian peoples, and in fact 100% of all humans in the world, are descended from Genghis Khan. Can you cite for that? I’d believe ‘approaching 100%’, but - aren’t there regions that were until recently very isolated communities going back hundreds and hundreds of years, where you still might find a few people who didn’t have an ‘outsider’ for an ancestor? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/23 "2010-06-11T18:37:02Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Isn’t like 25% of all Central Asian peoples descended from Genghis Khan? > [@Chronos](#): > > 100% of Central Asian peoples, and in fact 100% of all humans in the world, are descended from Genghis Khan. Which is unremarkable, given that there are billions of swineherds and subsistence farmers who can make the same claim. What’s remarkable about Genghis is that 8% of the population of that part of the world is descended from him _in the purely male line_. That is to say, if you start with anyone in central Asia, and look at their father, and then their father’s father, and then his father, and so on, 8% of the time you’ll end up with Genghis. No cite for Genghis Khan in particular, but if you go far enough back in time, it is a mathematical certainty that any person living at that moment in time is either an ancestor of everyone alive today, or has no living descendants–with no exceptions. A person who can count everyone alive today as one of his/her descendants is called a “common ancestor.” The common ancestor who lived most recently is called the [“most recent common ancestor”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor) (MRCA) What’s surprising is how recent the MRCA lived. For all humans alive today, the MRCA likely lived sometime between the sixth millennium BC to the first or second millennium BC. (ETA: if these estimates are correct, it makes it unlikely that Genghis Khan is a common ancestor of all humans alive today. He may be a common ancestor of all Central Asian people, but probably not everyone on the planet.) If you consider subgroups of all humans alive today, such as Western Europeans, the MRCA of all Western Europeans might have been alive as recently as 1000 AD. If this estimate is correct, it is unsurprising that a huge percentage of English people were descended from Edward III. Indeed, it would not be surprising if **all** English people alive today (with English ancestry) are descended from Edward III. ---
**Author:** ![shane\_lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@shane\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shane_lee)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/24 "2010-08-14T18:36:27Z")
if i may ask from anyone here that can help me on some info,i cannot give away to much info due to mass criticism but i would like to speak to somome whos expertise in this matter is accompanied by extensive knowledge. i may have proof that the blood line does live on today. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/25 "2010-08-14T18:53:25Z")
> [@robby](#): > > What’s surprising is how recent the MRCA lived. For all humans alive today, the MRCA likely lived sometime between the sixth millennium BC to the first or second millennium BC. I find that exceptionally difficult to believe. I’m aware of the maths, but it takes no account of geographic localisation. For example, the MRCA of a Zulu and an Australian Aborigine is going to predate humanity’s expansion from Africa, 75000-odd years ago. Similarly, the MRCA of a Basque and an Inca is going to be at least 10000 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/26 "2010-08-14T19:01:57Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > > [@robby](#): > > > > What’s surprising is how recent the MRCA lived. For all humans alive today, the MRCA likely lived sometime between the sixth millennium BC to the first or second millennium BC. > > I find that exceptionally difficult to believe. I’m aware of the maths, but it takes no account of geographic localisation. For example, the MRCA of a Zulu and an Australian Aborigine is going to predate humanity’s expansion from Africa, 75000-odd years ago. Similarly, the MRCA of a Basque and an Inca is going to be at least 10000 years ago. You are imaging that these people’s lineages have remained isolated since the time of the most recent common ancestor, which of course is not the case. Anyone alive today has potentially over one million ancestors alive just 500 years ago, and the numbers become astronomical beyond a few thousand years ago. It’s very likely that any descendant of an Inca today also has a conquistador and an African slave somewhere in their pedigree, even if they are very close to being pure Indian. And that European had some ancestors who were Basques and Mongols, and the African had some ancestors within the past few millenia who were Khoisan, Zulu, or Pygmies. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/27 "2010-08-14T20:42:16Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > > [@Quartz](#): > > > > I find that exceptionally difficult to believe. I’m aware of the maths, but it takes no account of geographic localisation. For example, the MRCA of a Zulu and an Australian Aborigine is going to predate humanity’s expansion from Africa, 75000-odd years ago. Similarly, the MRCA of a Basque and an Inca is going to be at least 10000 years ago. > > You are imaging that these people’s lineages have remained isolated since the time of the most recent common ancestor, which of course is not the case. Actually, with the examples I’ve chosen, it’s very likely the case. If you’re fussy, assume purity of line since 1500 AD. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/28 "2010-08-14T20:48:42Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Actually, with the examples I’ve chosen, it’s very likely the case. No, it’s not. > [@](#): > > If you’re fussy, assume purity of line since 1500 AD. That assumption is not compatible with the actual historical situation. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/29 "2010-08-14T21:48:08Z")
If you insist, take a tribesman from the deep Amazon and an Andamanian - you know, those ones who shoot at helicopters - at least 10000 years of isolation. Or a Bushman from the Kalahari and an Australian Aborigine: longer than since humanity expanded from Africa ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/30 "2010-08-14T21:55:54Z")
> **[7 Million People Direct Descendants Of Single Smooth-Talking Ancestor](https://www.theonion.com/7-million-people-direct-descendants-of-single-smooth-ta-1819570871)** > > BALTIMORE—Geneticists at the Johns Hopkins University announced Monday that an estimated seven million people worldwide carry a distinctive genetic marker linking them to a single smooth-talking common ancestor. It was a plot point in a novel that I read recently that the House of Saud claim to be (literally) the lineal heirs to Muhammad. (a) Is this factually true (i.e., that they make this claim as a basis for their legitimacy)? (b) If they do make the claim, how good/bad is their theoretical succession of begats? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/31 "2010-08-14T22:09:53Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > If you insist, take a tribesman from the deep Amazon and an Andamanian - you know, those ones who shoot at helicopters - at least 10000 years of isolation. Or a Bushman from the Kalahari and an Australian Aborigine: longer than since humanity expanded from Africa You’re still not getting it. These populations are not isolated in the way they would have to be for there not to be a recent MRCA. In the last 500 years, a tribe even deep in the Amazon has not remained isolated from breeding with the tribe next to it, nor that tribe with the tribe next to it, and so on. At some point in the past one of those tribes has a member who is descended from a European colonist or an African slave, and who was ancestral to one of the tribespeople who married into the most isolated tribe. Even with the Andamanese, it’s a near certainty the pedigree of the group includes one or more Arab or Tamil or Malay or Portuguese seafarers. The Andamese as a group may have originated tens of thousands of years ago; but if there has been any interbreeding at all they will share a more recent common ancestor with other populations. Once you get back a few dozen generations, the number of potential ancestors is so astronomical that even rare interbreeding events will be found in the pedigrees of everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/32 "2010-08-14T22:10:58Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > If you insist, take a tribesman from the deep Amazon and an Andamanian - you know, those ones who shoot at helicopters - at least 10000 years of isolation. Or a Bushman from the Kalahari and an Australian Aborigine: longer than since humanity expanded from Africa So on that island, not a single person from the mainland has arrived in 10,000 years? They killed every single one, for 10,000 years? And tribes in the Amazon aren’t isolated, they trade with each other, people move. We have plenty of evidence of Australian trade with Indonesians prior to European contact. And given the history of European settlement, how many Australian aborigines do you think have zero European ancestors? And Kalahari bushmen are in regular contact with their neighbors, it is impossible that there hasn’t been a non-bushman in their ancestry for 10,000 years. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/33 "2010-08-14T22:18:46Z")
Article about Genghis Khan’s bloodline: > **[National Geographic](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/)** > > Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/34 "2010-08-14T22:23:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Isn’t like 25% of all Central Asian peoples descended from Genghis Khan? > > 100% of Central Asian peoples, and in fact 100% of all humans in the world, are descended from Genghis Khan. Which is unremarkable, given that there are billions of swineherds and subsistence farmers who can make the same claim. What’s remarkable about Genghis is that 8% of the population of that part of the world is descended from him _in the purely male line_. That is to say, if you start with anyone in central Asia, and look at their father, and then their father’s father, and then his father, and so on, 8% of the time you’ll end up with Genghis. Which is why I, with Eastern Polish blood in me, claimed Mongol as part of my ethnicity when asked on the most recent US Census. ---
**Author:** ![Rusalka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecd19e/32.png) [@Rusalka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rusalka)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/35 "2010-08-14T22:59:06Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > > [@Quartz](#): > > > > If you insist, take a tribesman from the deep Amazon and an Andamanian - you know, those ones who shoot at helicopters - at least 10000 years of isolation. Or a Bushman from the Kalahari and an Australian Aborigine: longer than since humanity expanded from Africa > > In the last 500 years, a tribe even deep in the Amazon has not remained isolated from breeding with the tribe next to it, nor that tribe with the tribe next to it, and so on. At some point in the past one of those tribes has a member who is descended from a European colonist or an African slave, and who was ancestral to one of the tribespeople who married into the most isolated tribe. Even with the Andamanese, it’s a near certainty the pedigree of the group includes one or more Arab or Tamil or Malay or Portuguese seafarers. There are a lot of “ifs” in there. You are assuming that every indigenous group on earth has interbred with Europeans, etc., and that is a big assumption. Where do you get your data? There are many tribes who have indeed remained isolated from outside contact. How can you say it’s a “near certainty” that every member of an isolated group is related to outsiders? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/36 "2010-08-14T23:05:14Z")
> [@Rusalka](#): > > > [@Colibri](#): > > > > In the last 500 years, a tribe even deep in the Amazon has not remained isolated from breeding with the tribe next to it, nor that tribe with the tribe next to it, and so on. At some point in the past one of those tribes has a member who is descended from a European colonist or an African slave, and who was ancestral to one of the tribespeople who married into the most isolated tribe. Even with the Andamanese, it’s a near certainty the pedigree of the group includes one or more Arab or Tamil or Malay or Portuguese seafarers. > > There are a lot of “ifs” in there. You are assuming that every indigenous group on earth has interbred with Europeans, etc., and that is a big assumption. Where do you get your data? There are many tribes who have indeed remained isolated from outside contact. How can you say it’s a “near certainty” that every member of an isolated group is related to outsiders? It’s not difficult to believe that gene flow between European explorers entered deep into Amazonia over the centuries just as \*\*Colibri \*\*explained-- by neighbors breeding with neighbors. The tricky part is getting to the point where everyone in that “remote village” is a descendant of someone who bred with the neighbors, who bred with the neighbors, who… bred with a European (or Asian or whatever). The studies \*\*Colibri \*\*is referring to are based on probabilistic models and/or simulations. 500 years is a long time for genes to flow around the world. Had we been talking about this 300 years ago, things would probably be different. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/37 "2010-08-14T23:22:37Z")
> [@Rusalka](#): > > There are a lot of “ifs” in there. You are assuming that every indigenous group on earth has interbred with Europeans, etc., and that is a big assumption. Where do you get your data? There are many tribes who have indeed remained isolated from outside contact. How can you say it’s a “near certainty” that every member of an isolated group is related to outsiders? You’re also not getting it. There is no tribe on Earth that is completely isolated from all other groups, and has been so for thousands of years. As I already pointed out, _it is not necessary for the tribe itself to have ever directly interbred with Europeans_. It is only necessary for them to have interbred with adjacent groups that have; or with groups adjacent to other groups that have. And Europeans and Africans have been all over Amazonia for hundreds of years. Also, I am not assuming that every indigenous group on Earth has interbred with Europeans. In fact, it’s far more likely that the most recent common ancestor was a Central Asian. Mongols and even earlier nomadic groups made incursions into Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Through these contacts, they would have interbred not only with Europeans, but with groups like the Arabs, who penetrated much of Africa, and Indonesian peoples who had contact with Australia. I’m of Irish and German ancestry. If you take it back a couple of millenia, I certainly have several ancestors who were African slaves who had been brought to Rome, and Huns who had originally come from Central Asia. Any Europeans who colonized the Americas and Australia also would have had similar ancestry 20 generations back. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/38 "2010-08-14T23:26:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The tricky part is getting to the point where everyone in that “remote village” is a descendant of someone who bred with the neighbors, who bred with the neighbors, who… bred with a European (or Asian or whatever). If the tribe is small, it doesn’t take much time on the scale that we are talking about; maybe five or six generations. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/39 "2010-08-14T23:34:25Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > If you figure about 30 years between generations, and two kids per generation, then there are about 2^(2100/30) = ~a sextillion descendents of Julius Caesar (or if not Caesar himself, then Caesar’s cousin) alive today. Obviously, his family tree had some straight sections to it because that’s more than the population of the planet, but still, the point remains, if you have _any_ European blood, your chances are pretty good at being one of those descendents. Technically, you are _many_ of his descendants, which is why there aren’t a sextillion people. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725/40 "2010-08-15T00:06:02Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Isn’t like 25% of all Central Asian peoples descended from Genghis Khan? I never understand these statistics. In that case, surely there were only 4 people alive at the time? Or did he procreate with 25% of the women available at the time? What happened to the other hundreds of thousands of people alive in Central Asia at the time who therefore only - between them all - accounted for 75% of the descendants? How did he manage to corner a whole quarter of the population? Surely 99.9999% of the women at the time \*didn’t \*procreate with Genghis Khan, and they have decendants too, no? Which multiplied at the same rate as his descendants? How does that make 25% of people thousands of years later descended from him? Surely 99.999% of people are descended from people who lived at the same time but who never even met him, let alone procreated with him? As is clear, I do not have a grasp on how this works! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-julius-caesars-bloodline-traceable-to-present-day/542725.md?page=3)