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Learn how DNA reveals our common ancestry.

How many ancestors do you have?  Simple math says that going back just four generations, you have thirty direct ancestors. But if you go back forty generations, still using simple math, you have over one trillion direct ancestors. This just cannot be!

We Are All Really Family

Every human shares a common ancestor. This ancestor lived about 3,000 years ago. Unfortunately, we do not know who this ancestor is.

Genes are the fingerprint of our ancestors. Our forty-six chromosomes are vastly similar to one another. It is only the slight differences in our DNA that give us our very real differences in appearance. On a DNA level, we are remarkably similar. Any two humans only differ by about one out of 1,000 DNA base pairs.

We have a forty-seventh chromosome that has passed on unbroken or shuffled to today. It lives in the mitochondria and has been passed on unchanged coming from one woman about 150,000 years ago.

We are able to use DNA to establish the ancestors before us, but what about the future?  With the abilities we have today to mold down to the DNA level, what will our species look like in the future?

Article for this topic by David Bassett.
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Key Points:

  • Every human shares a common ancestor. This ancestor lived about 3,000 years ago. Unfortunately, we do not know who this ancestor is.
  • Genes are the fingerprint of our ancestors.
  • We have a forty-seventh chromosome that has passed on unbroken or shuffled to today. It lives in the mitochondria and has been passed on unchanged coming from one woman about 150,000 years ago.

Quote This:

I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of my father, mother and my ancestors. So I am really never alone. My identity is through that line. -Ziggy Marley

Talk About It
  1. What is your initial reaction to this topic? What jumped out at you?
  2. What does it mean that our species, homo sapiens, is a “new species”?
  3. How easy is to accept that, despite obvious and sometimes dramatic physical traits, all humans are remarkably similar?
  4. What impact did a smaller original population have in passing on DNA among our species?
  5. Write a personal action step based on this conversation.

This topic is adapted from the It’s Okay To Be Smart YouTube channel.