AN article in the magazine New Scientist recently caught my eye. I first started reading the magazine in West Park’s school library and more than 50 years later I have a lasting school legacy, a subscription because the scientific world still fascinates me. This is a thought for you to discuss over a pint.

I know a lot of you are busy researching into your family history. Now we know you have two parents, and four grandparents, and eight great grandparents. So it’s true that the number of your ancestors doubles every generation.

Let us assume that a generation covers 25 years. At some point this doubling of the numbers will exceed the population of the world at a certain time.

The researchers used readily available global estimates at each generation, rounded up to one million. Assuming you were born in 2000 when the estimated global population was 5.75 billion, then the parents were born in 1975 in an estimated global population of four billion, and their parents would be born in 1950 when the estimated global population is two and a half billion.

You repeat this calculation 25 more times until you reach 1325 when the number of your ancestors reaches 134, 217,728 million. Those people and their parents (only 25 years older) make up the entire global population at the time.

Now start off at the beginning with Adam and Eve. They were two and probably their population doubled in size every 25 years, ignoring ice ages, famine, disease, and wars, etc It’s hopeless to guess where the two timelines intersect, but we can assume that prior to around 1325, the number of your ancestors reduces with each generation, as does the global population.

It appears that everyone alive today shares their ancestors from the early 1300s and the saying that we are all descended from Genghis Khan is mathematically certain. Ah, my brain hurts. I need an Uncle Joe’s Mint Ball!