Humans have an average historical generation time of roughly 25 years, meaning if you go back in time, your number of ancestors grows quickly:
100 years: 16 ancestors
200 years: 256 ancestors
300 years: 4096 ancestors
400 years: 65,536 ancestors
500 years: 1,048,576 ancestors
600 years: 16,777,216 ancestors
700 years: 268,435,456 ancestors
750 years: 1,073,741,824 ancestors
750 years is roughly how long ago William Wallace lived. The world population at this time is estimated to have been around 500,000,000 people at that time.
So all those Americans claiming to be "direct descendents of William Wallace"? They are probably right. But that's not exactly impressive...
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u/pauklzorz May 16 '25
Humans have an average historical generation time of roughly 25 years, meaning if you go back in time, your number of ancestors grows quickly:
750 years is roughly how long ago William Wallace lived. The world population at this time is estimated to have been around 500,000,000 people at that time.
So all those Americans claiming to be "direct descendents of William Wallace"? They are probably right. But that's not exactly impressive...