How similar would my DNA be to that of my anscestors from say the second century?

Question

How similar would my DNA be to that of my anscestors from say the second century?

Answer 1

I'm not an expert on DNA but here's something I think that is important to note:

Certain types of DNA are passed along only along matriarchal lines - I believe it's Mitochondrial DNA?

or MDNA?

And despite the large percentage that is identical which makes us human, the small variables that make us have our racial or genetic makeup are what are most likely to be different - as well as lost or hardest to trace - one would need a sample of DNA from back then along with a confirmed family tree unbroken from that individual to the present to fully examine a lot of the questions and controverseys that surround DNA and ancestry today....also when one considers unknown and undocumented interbreeding and interfamily relationships as well as migrations etc., the problem becomes quite problematics - I believe this is the reason that not as much as many would like to claim can be documented or explained by DNA - in otherwords no complete picture and understanding of the world's history, migrations or ancestry has been or can be created from what is known about DNA at the present.

Answer 2

You would most likely be a different haplogroup (male & female genetic markers) as either mtDNA or yDNA can disappear within  2 generations, but this all depends on how isolated your ancestors were. However the largest amount of your DNA would have markers contributed by your other ancestors.  Much of this depends upon how beneficial the genes of your ancestors were to the survival of later ancestors.  If you are European, it is likely you have some resistance to small pox, measels, chicken pox, & even the black death (which killed one of 3 or 4 Europeans.)  One has to suspect a number of haplogroups existing in the 2nd century are now extinct.

Answer 3

Numerically, an infinitesimal amount. Functionally, there will be noticeable changes.

Most of the people alive live now are the descendants of the richer medieval upper classes, not so much the peasant.

You'll also have some better resistances to disease, everyone overly susceptible to plague, smallpox, typhoid etc, would have been wiped out. Just see what happened to the native Americans, who'd never seen these diseases.

Also, you'' have a stronger resistance to influenza. You'll be more likely to be able to digest lactose and be less insulin resistant, and be more likely to be blue eyed (it's a really recent mutation). You'll also be less likely to have an occipital bun (lump on the back of the head) and less likely to be rhesus negative.

Evolution is a constant process.

Answer 4

There wouldn't really be that much difference. The base rate that is used to measure DNA mutation is 2% per 100,000 years if I remember correctly.

Answer 5

In the case of "Chedar man," killed 9,000 years ago DNA was able to identify a living descendant.

Interesting is the fact that "About 1 to 1.5 percent of Britain's population is likely to share the same mitochondrial DNA markings found in Cheddar Man and Mr. Targett"

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht...

This suggests that we're all related in someway

Answer 6

Everyones DNA can be traced back to an African tribe. Ninety percent of this DNA is still the same.

Answer 7

It could be very similar if your family and all generations before that never moved from the original area where they lived & never intermarried with people who were not from the same town, gene pool,etc. That is how genes get concentrated (and I am not talking a genetic bottle neck aka inbreeding).

If you look at people all over the world, where phenotypes are uniform, you will find that those people kept intermarrying and they became uniform looking.

Examples:

Ethiopians/Eritreans

Somalis

Khoisians

Japanese

Chinese

Native Americans (pre-colonialism)

Koreans

Swedes

Dutch

Hawaiins

Australian Aborigines

Nigerians

You can tell these people apart from anygroup that they are in. Because they have strong genes, and strong features, unique to their ethnicities.

Answer 8

Actually, the number is 99.9% the same.  Strands of DNA contain three billion base pairs of the amino acids that (along with phosphates and sugars for the "beams") form the "rungs" on the ladder of the double helix.  This means that the .1% difference between individuals represents 3 million base pairs, more than enough for each person's DNA to be as unique as his or her fingerprints while still being 99.9% identical to six billion other current humans as well as all the past humans for about the last 10,000 to 30,000 years.

Answer 9

the mtdna is passed in an unbroken line from mother to daughter. I have had mine done. My ultimate ancestor was a woman who lived in Tuscany,italy 17000 years ago. Her tribe moved into france & along the western seaboard, crossing over into Western Britain & particularly to Ireland (where my family came from) c 6-8000 years ago.

   In checking dna data bases I had several EXACT matches to my dna sequence in the Near East--which is where the tribe came from before they entered Europe.  Astounding stuff.