Name: How we're building the world's largest family tree
Uploaded: 2019-09-25T14:47:50Z
Duration: 11 min 12 s
Description: Computational geneticist Yaniv Erlich helped build the world's largest family tree -- comprising 13 million people and going back more than 500 years. He shares fascinating patterns that emerged from the work -- about our love lives, our health, even decades-old criminal cases -- and shows how crowdsourced genealogy databases can shed light not only on the past but also on the future.

Yaniv Erlich: How we're building the world's largest family tree

How we're building the world's largest family tree

Computational geneticist Yaniv Erlich helped build the world's largest family tree -- comprising 13 million people and going back more than 500 years. He shares fascinating patterns that emerged from the work -- about our love lives, our health, even decades-old criminal cases -- and shows how crowdsourced genealogy databases can shed light not only on the past but also on the future.

A massive online family tree now connects over 125 million people, revealing how migration, health, and relationships shape our lives. By mapping these connections, surprising discoveries emerge, from distant links between historical figures to patterns in human longevity. The research shows that genes account for only 15 percent of lifespan differences, less than previously believed. Such databases have even helped solve decades-old criminal cases, demonstrating the power of collective ancestry data.