From: rail@greywall.demon.co.uk   
      
   On 21/04/2019 18:12, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   > On 2019-04-21 16:09:47 +0000, Ian Goddard said:   
   >   
   >> On 20/04/19 17:24, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   >>> With possible exception of people who've immigrated from Africa or   
   >>> Asia in the last generation or so we're all descended from William   
   >>> the Conqueror.   
   >>   
   >> This keeps coming up from time to time.  There seems to be an   
   >> assumption that because we have 1024, 2048 etc ancestors in a given   
   >> generation this means 1024, 2048 or whatever different people and that   
   >> at some point this proliferating number of different people meets the   
   >> proliferating number of descendants of William the Conqueror (or   
   >> Edward III, another popular alleged ancestor).   
   >>   
   >> The problem with this is that the assumption doesn't hold up.   
   >   
   > It holds up just fine. According to Brian Sykes, approximately 50% of   
   > men with the surname Sykes have a Y chromosome that seems to have   
   > originated from somewhere near Pontefract. That means that 50% do not.   
   > So where did they get theirs from? Some no doubt, from local farmers,   
   > ploughmen etc., but you only need a small proportion to come from the   
   > nobility for their descendants to spread all over the place. It's vastly   
   > more likely for a noble to impregnate a farmer's wife than it is for a   
   > farmer to impregnate a nobleman's wife.   
   >   
      
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   Graeme Wall   
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