Hey Everybody,
How much of you are there in your family, genetically speaking?
I realize that the question as it stands is almost meaningless. Most apes share most of their DNA with each other and a lot of other critters. However, disregarding the boring details (this is IMHO, right?) roughly speaking one shares 50% of their DNA with their father and 50% with their mother’s DNA. Each bit of your DNA came from either your mom or your dad, even if that bit would’ve been the same from either, we can still attribute it to one or the other. Let’s use the “where it came from” rather than “what it is” as a definition of genetic relation. I guess more like lineage or consanguinity than pure genetics.
Now if I remember my bio correctly your siblings on average have about 50% shared genetics with you (although siblings, and most other relatives, unlike parents, can have vastly varying amounts of shared genetics). Half-siblings average at 25%, as do grandparents. Aunts and uncles should average about 25% as well. Same generation first cousins, great grandparents, great aunts and great uncles about 12.5%. First cousins once removed and great great * are 6.25%. Same generation second cousins 3.125%. Same generation third cousins average 0.78125%. You get the idea (And if I got any math wrong, correct me, or not, whatever 
)
I very recently lost my half-brother, and this is probably the reason I’m making this post. I feel fairly lonely in the biological family department for my age (early 20s) and even though my friends/family are awesome, I’m still aware of the fact that my genealogical tree is kind of sparse. In addition to the fact that I am one of two living people in my family with my last name, you can understand how I can get curious about how I stack up as compared to other people. So I decided to count up roughly how much of me there is in my living family. To simplify I came up with an arbitrary unit of lineage simply called ‘points’.
Let’s say I am 100 points
My mother - 50 points
One grandparent ~ 25 points
Two biological half-aunts ~ 2x12.5 = 25 points
Five half-first-cousins ~ 5x6.25 = 31.25 points
Seven half-first-cousins-once-removed ~ 8x3.125 = 25 points
Only two half-second-cousins ~ 2x1.5625 = 3.125 points
Misc including several half/quarter-third-cousins ~ Let’s say 5 points
Adds up to about 264 points of traceable family across three continents, with 150 being in North America, 60 in Asia (with about 90% of that in Middle East and 10% in Siberia) and the rest in Europe. There’s about 2.64 of me out there, counting me, or at least that would be the average expected value.
Of course I’m not expecting everybody to start adding up their entire living kin (unless you have time to kill), but I’m really curious so what do you think your ballpark figure would be? Also your age bracket would be an interesting thing to consider in context.
Who’s up for it?
Cheers,
Groman