Genghis khan and his descendants

[Dom Tuk]

Is it true that Genghis Khan has 16 million living descendants today. Is correct how many children did he have to sire in order to get this number of descendants.

[Lonnie]

Hi Dom, I just googled your question, and got up 'Genghis Kahn, the most prolific man in history', I stopped there and then, you never know, you or I could be one.

[jno]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html - doesn't give a list of his own children, though.

[dot.hawkes]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s917468.htm

Not sure if this is serious or not.

[dot.hawkes]

can u 3 report my answer as illiterate as I put 'not' at either end of that sentence and I am appalled! My daughter would be hysterical with laughter!

[Clanad]

Tem�jin Borjigin, his given name, Genghis Khan being a title, had four official sons, but he and they llived by the motto:
The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms"

Preferring rape and conquest to hunting and falconry, coupled with building an empire and "a social legacy that benefited his sons' sons unto the seventh generation and even beyond", meant that Genghis' progeny multiplied explosively, and his apparent Y-chromosome lineage today features prominently in the population genetics of Asia.
(Source: Footprints of the Khan).
He died in A.D. 1227 as the result of falling off his horse, on whom he had literally lived his entire life.
His body has never been discovered so it remains speculation that the common DNA descendants are his, but no other historical figure could have been so proliferate...

[bernardo]

If a person has 2 (surviving) children, and they each have 2 children, and they each have 2 children (etc) then it would only take 24 generations (i.e. about 600 years) to reach a total of 16 million descendants. So an average person in the 14th century probably has c.16 million descendants alive now anyway, let alone any extra prolific person.

[heathfield]

In the UK, it's reckoned that if everyone had married outside their own family, we'd all be related to everyone alive in Britain around the year 1568.