I went to a distant family reunion last summer, basically, the descendants of my great-great grandmother (on the matrilineal line). She had like eight kids, so it was a pretty big reunion. It was pretty boring, actually, and I could see why my great-grandmother only stayed in touch with one of her sisters and one of her brothers, and why my grandmother also declined to stay in contact with anyone but those particular cousins.
But after so many generations, it hardly counts as being related anymore. If I get half of my genes from my mother, and she got half from her mother, and so on and so forth, we’re talking like what, maybe 6% of my genes from the common ancestor of the group?
