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How Many Ancestors Do I Have? Connect with Your Family • FamilySearch

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January 10, 2023 edited January 10, 2023 in Blog Comments EN
imageHow Many Ancestors Do I Have? Connect with Your Family • FamilySearch

Have you ever asked the question, "How many ancestors do I have?" Click the link to discover your ancestors and family roots!

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Comments

  • Kenneth ELDRIDGE
    Kenneth ELDRIDGE ✭
    January 10, 2023

    Very interesting and informative article. Congratulations to Kathryn for a great explanation!

    0
  • Laurel Price1
    Laurel Price1 ✭
    January 12, 2023

    Thank you for sharing this exponentially fascinating information.

    0
  • Dave4990
    Dave4990 ✭
    July 2, 2023

    Hi Kathryn,

    amazing article thanks so much for the work and grace poured into it.

    I do have a question though: in terms of direct ancestors, and there being an estimated 12000 human generations (by mainstream archeology's angle) 2n=x doesn't really work: it is just an obscene number. Perhaps ancestors are more of a bell curve? There being 2 that squares up to a few million and then square roots down again to 2? Super baffled, curious and grateful for being able to ask the question,

    Dave

    0
  • Steven5838
    Steven5838 ✭
    December 11, 2023

    Hello,

    I was kinda breaking my head trying to understand some things.

    Google searches tell me that 117 billion people have ever lived on earth.

    Goolge searches also tell me that roughly 12000 generations of humans have existed on earth.

    If I do a calculation to find out how many ancestors I have going back 12000 generations I get a number that is unfathomably large.

    Going back only 50 generations or so the formula does NOT give you a "pretty good approximation"

    You mentioned a "wrinkle" effect.. this "wrinkle effect" must also have to be enormous in order to end up with a reasonable number of ancestors going back hundreds of generations.

    Perhaps this implies that we all have an enormous amount of "inbreeding" (if the term can still be applied) in our ancestry.

    0
  • Tressy L. Brown
    Tressy L. Brown ✭
    July 15, 2024

    Love all the information and your amazing work! Thank you!

    0
  • BobHaupt
    BobHaupt ✭
    November 9, 2024

    Your first chart is missing generation 11 in the first column.

    0
  • Cheryl Gebhart
    Cheryl Gebhart mod
    November 10, 2024

    @BobHaupt Thank you for pointing this out! We will work on an update.

    0
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