Are you related to Genghis Khan?

If you think of anyone throughout history who has led armies beyond their borders, conquering vast territories, none will surpass Genghis Khan. Neither Napoleon Bonaparte nor Alexander the Great, much less Adolf Hitler, managed to expand his empires across as many lands as the Mongol emperor.

More than that: while the German left no direct descendants (apparently), the Asian leader was responsible for a true baby boom, shaping a population that today represents about 0.5% of the men on earth. Doesn't look like much? Think about 35 million "children" in the world.

According to a study published in 2003 that sought to uncover the genetic legacy of the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan's behavior (or lack thereof) during his rule provided a kind of demographic explosion in the region. At the time of his death in 1227, almost 10% of the people under his control were his children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

The Khan Chromosome

This statistic may be even higher, as the research has been able to trace only the surviving Y chromosome spreading from Genghis Khan himself. That is, by the method used, it was not possible to identify the women who were born thanks to the emperor's “rabbit” lifestyle, only the men who had such a chromosome. You remember that the woman provides the X, while the man can offer the X or the Y in the reproductive process, right?

Well then, they discovered that there was an unusual amount of certain mutant Y in the region that 800 years ago belonged to the Mongol Empire. Curious, scientists set up a kind of family tree for the origin of this chromosome and tracked it for about a thousand years in history. Result: It originated in what is now Mongolia.

Connecting the dots

Now who could have lived in that region and at that time with such an ability to provoke such an absurd genetic spread? If you think there were no football players, actors or singers, for example, it seems simple to conclude that it was a guy who rode a horse and created an empire that ran from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean in just 20. years.

And don't think Genghis Khan was a funny and charismatic heartthrob who broke hearts wherever he went. In fact, it destroyed entire villages, being one of the most violent figures in human history. While killing most (or all) men in the conquered area, the Mongol still raped virtually every woman there. The more land, the more pregnant.

The true ancestor

Despite being responsible for spreading this identifiable chromosome to this day, it was not at Genghis Khan that it gained the specific brand that persists generation after generation. According to the research, the "original" mutant Y must have belonged to the Mongol emperor's great-grandfather, who had a somewhat "troubled" family.

Khan was born in 1162 under the name Temujin, which would be a tribute from his father to a Tartar leader who had been imprisoned in battle. As a young man, Temujin discovered that his father had been poisoned by the Tartars at a "business dinner" and freaked out his head. He went after the succession line of power within his clan and, after being scorned, killed his own brother to take over the leadership of his people, to declare Genghis Khan and begin to have uncontrolled sex out there.