Here’s a fun fact: “At seven generations back, less than 1% of your DNA is likely to have come from any given ancestor,” according to ancestry.com. This can be explained by our old friend, math. With every generation, your number of blood relatives doubles, ballooning the gene pool of your ancestry. Sure, your great, great, great, great, great grandmother may have been a countess, but only a very small amount of her DNA has likely been passed on to you.
No one understood this math better than the royal families of old, who commonly married off close relatives to keep the bloodline — and cash flows — as “pure” as possible. (They paid a healthy price for their greed: The health effects of inbreeding was a widespread problem among royal families.)
Indeed, the fact that we share genes with such a large ancestry of people is to our benefit. Genetic diversity is a crucial factor in the health of a species and gives us a better shot at adapting to our environment. (Interestingly, humans are actually one of the less genetically diverse species, likely because of the relative newness of our existence.)
Hence, the idea that our blood can entitle us to anything doesn’t have much scientific backing, especially the further back you go. In the end, the idea of ancestry is more a story we tell than anything, and that story can hold as much, or as little, significance as you choose.
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