But it isn’t a useful heuristic. It consistently leads to error. It doesn’t pan out, even on average.
It seems related to the universal belief that inanimate objects have volition, which also was doubtless given to us by God.
I am only telling the truth, Mr. Miller. You may be a descendant of the Kings of Scotland if you are a Scottish Miller as I am. When is it a sin to take a little pride in one’s past. Don’t we look to the past and future for the appearance of our living Lord who was once dead. Jesus is 100% God and 100% human. That means that he has human DNA. Perhaps you are related to him. The possibilities are open. Mr. Miller, do you have Hebrew ancestry? I do not. What are the possibilities in your family? Is that a sin? I think not. I am just an historian.
It depends on the interpretation of Genesis 1-11. Is it allegory? It was good to hear from you, doctor.
I’m perplexed by your reply. (Welcome back to Peaceful Science, by the way.) I certainly believe that you were telling the truth—and, as I made clear, I am virtually certainly that you are a descendant of Edward III, just as I’m almost certain that I am his descendant. The math of genealogical descent tells us that almost 100% of those with English descent (and the majority of those of Scottish descent) have family trees with at least one ancestry path back to Edward III, if not many such paths.
As to an accusation of sin for taking pride in one’s ancestral path, I have no idea where that came from. (I certainly didn’t say anything about sin and pride in relation to genealogy.) As I noted, lots of people (including me) have made DNA testing and genealogical research a rapidly growing industry—because so many of us are fascinated by our genetic and genealogical pasts. I have focused on tracing my Y-DNA, because it gets passed down from father to son with only an occasional mutation changing the “fingerprint” of ancestry. And that has made it possible for me to trace my Millers to a particular clan in a specific region of Scotland. My 37-marker Y-DNA test also provided a likely answer to a long-standing mystery in my family as to why my grandfather’s great grandfather kept his paternal ancestry secret: everybody in the clan was forced to take a new surname under pain of death because the clan name was condemned by order of the king. Thus, I learned that a lot of Scottish Millers adopted that surname in the early years of the 1600s. (I also found it fascinating that unlike the Millers of virtually every other etymological background, all of which related to milling grain, many of the Millers of Scotland have a name derived from a particular creek near Glasgow, a name which gradually got shortened until it elided to “Miller.”)
I’ve never done any autosomal DNA testing, largely because I already know the ethnicities and countries of origin for almost all of my great great grandparents----so such broad DNA testing wouldn’t differ all that much from that of every other American with German, Scottish, English, and French roots.
Is my genealogical research a matter of pride? I’ve never looked at it that way. (After all, how could I possibly take any credit for anything my ancestors accomplished?) But perhaps in this case the word pride connotes if not denotes a fascination with how my ancestors lived and migrated.
For sure. And like many other Scots-Irish Americans, my Y-DNA indicates descent from Colla Uais (of The Three Collas), High King of Ireland in the fourth century. Even if your Y-DNA doesn’t link you to any Scottish or Irish king, your autosomal DNA as well as the basic math of human reproduction guarantees that Scots-Irish Americans have both noble and non-noble ancestors in their family trees.
I have not found any Jewish ancestors in my family tree that I could document. Nevertheless, the basic math of human descent as well as what has actually been verified from widespread autosomal DNA testing of Americans of European descent is that all of us have a Jewish ancestor somewhere in our family tree if we could trace back far enough. For example, every single person I’ve known who has gotten an autosomal DNA report found an entry linking them to Sephardic Jews, usually those associated with the Balearic Islands and the Spanish southern mainland. Considering how often the Jews experienced persecution and even banishment, mass migrations sent Jewish people into Western Europe at least two thousand years ago, if not earlier. Thus, it is not all that surprising that ubiquitous Jewish ancestry is a modern day result of the Diaspora. (Lots of people who are surprised at finding Jewish ancestors in their family tree discover that they were forced converts to Catholicism. In just a few generations their descendants lost knowledge of Jewish roots.)
If you have Scottish and other western European ancestry, you almost certainly have Hebrew ancestors somewhere in your family tree. The math is powerful and even relentless, one might say.
I agree. Indeed, I would be shocked to hear of anyone claiming that being interested in one’s ancestry is a sin. (That would strike me as a very strange kind of legalism!)
One of many reasons why I have been so interested in Dr. Swamidass’ writings concerning the Genealogical Adam is that the math fits so well into what I had learned from my own research into ancestry and genetic testing.
I am not an historian but I’ve always been interested in history. In terms of my researching the histories of my ancestors, I’ve focused heavily on the religion-related reasons why they migrated to the American colonies. All of my family lineages can be traced to difficult geopolitical situations in various regions of Europe, from the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Huguenots and the resulting refugee crisis to the many hardships of Palatinate Anabaptists, including many Mennonites and Swiss/German Brethren Dunkards. In the course of my research I realized the obvious: the history of my ancestors was the history of Europe.
I’ve plodded through these genealogical topics not so much because it tells us anything about the Souls of Our Ancestors but because it is yet another reminder that (1) we humans are “mutts”, a complex mixture of ancient lineages and many ethnicities which would surprise most people, and (2) the Genealogical Adam makes complete sense mathematically.
Furthermore, I agree with you that Jesus was fully human and his DNA was no doubt very much like other Jews in first century Palestine.
{By the way, @Charles_Miller, if you are interested in any of my Miller Y-DNA and clan-linked research, you are welcomed to privately message me for more information.}
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A Yale mathematician’s models presented in a 2004 issue of Nature are not necessarily up to date but I like this observation from his paper:
“No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu.”
That doesn’t tell us much about The Souls of Our Ancestors but it does tell us a lot about our shared heritage as human beings—and, ultimately, the plausibility of the Genealogical Adam.
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I must say that you have written a grand thesis, and would be interested in your family past. I would say that you are a historian. Scientists look into the distant past. I have to admire that.
Edward
@Charles_Miller, I was going to send you some links to articles of likely interest to you but it appears that you have messaging turned off. If you enable it within the next few hours, send me a message and I’ll still have the links on hand for forwarding.
By the way, here’s an interesting book. I’ve not read it (and only found it accidentally this morning) but its title is fascinating:
http://432thedrop.com/NewDrop/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/When-Scotland-was-Jewish.pdf
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I really like your scholarship. I like the book. My grandmother Essie Edward Miller was a Cowan before she married Duncan Winston Miller of Colerain, North Carolina. Does that remind you of Coleraine, Ireland. Ralph Wolfe Cowan, international artist who was my third cousin, died September 4, 2018. He was friends with her majesty, Elizabeth of the UK. I would like to become friends with you. Brilliant scholar. Some of the Cowans spelt the name Cowand.
Ed Miller
Send me a private message and I will get you the links. (I can’t send you a message until you enable your messaging.)
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