Ghengis Kahn died hundreds of year ago, but his lineage lives on according to a National Geographic article. Up to “16 million” people living today could be descendents of Kahn, due to his ruthless conquering of land and, obviously, the ladies.
Genghis Khan, the fearsome Mongolian warrior of the 13th century, may have done more than rule the largest empire in the world; according to a recently published genetic study, he may have helped populate it too.
An international group of geneticists studying Y-chromosome data have found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today.
And here I thought the 14 children in my mother’s family was a lot.