1 in 200 People Are Related to Genghis Khan

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Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• A new study reveals that remnants of the Y-chromosomal lineage attributed to Genghis Khan were found in a set of medieval mausoleums in Kazakstan.

• The tombs have (in local lore) been attributed to Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, though this connection has never been confirmed.

• Jochi’s parentage has actually been a subject of debate for centuries—his own younger brother allegedly believed Jochi had been fathered by a Merkit kidnapper.

This story is a collaboration with Biography.com.

There’s a good chance that at some point in your life, you’ve come across the factoid that “one in every 200 people is descended from Genghis Khan.” It is a perennial internet favorite, but like many ‘facts’ on the internet, it leaves a bevy of questions in its wake. Most particularly: How, exactly, do we know this?

The stat stems from a 2003 study that identified a Y-chromosomal lineage when surveying 16 different populations throughout Asia. “∼8% of the men in this region carry it,” the study said, “and it thus makes up ∼0.5% of the world total.” But the Genghis Khan connection came not from any direct DNA analysis—it was merely inferred after the researchers found that “the pattern of variation within the lineage suggested that it originated in Mongolia ∼1,000 years ago.”

In the decades since, no one has been able to directly tie this Y-chromosomal lineage to Genghis Khan through archeological evidence. That is, until now.

In a new study, a team of archeologists and geneticists from Japan, Kazakstan, and the U.S. suggests that they may have found the DNA of one of Genghis Khan’s direct descendants in a pair of medieval mausoleums.

The collection of tombs were located in Ulitau region of Kazakhstan—an area once dominated by a division of the Mongol Empire known as the Golden Horde. This subdivision, which commanded the western wing of the empire, was overseen by the descendants of Khan’s eldest son, Jochi, who lived from roughly 1182 to 1225 C.E.

Local tradition had long held that one of the mausoleums analyzed in this new study was, in fact, the final resting place of Jochi himself. While the analysts couldn’t conclusively prove who was buried there, they were able to identify a common ancestor of all three of the men buried in the mausoleums. The trio all carried the haplogroup C3 Y-chromosome signature—the same signature that the aforementioned 2003 study found was in 0.5 percent of the population and attributed to Genghis Khan. This Y-chromosome lineage indicated that those buried in the mausoleums bore the genetic signature of the Mongols, as opposed to the genetic makeup of the Kipchak Turks native to the region.

There are reasons to question whether or not the mausoleum holds the remains of Jochi himself—radiocarbon dating indicates that the burials occurred after the time Jochi is believed to have died, for one, and it is known that Mongol tradition preferred secret graves to grand resting places like these. However, if one of these three men was Jochi, the presence of this shared Y-chromosome lineage could not only provide further confirmation that haplogroup C3 stems from Genghis Khan, but could clear up a centuries-old controversy regarding Genghis Khan’s descendants.

Jochi was born to Börte Üjin, the first wife of Genghis Khan. However, shortly after the two wed, she was kidnapped by members of the Merkit tribe in an act of revenge against Khan. Khan ultimately rescued his wife, who (as stories have suggested) may have been forcibly married to, and subsequently sexually assaulted by, a member of the Merkit tribe—a story perpetuated in the oldest surviving work of Mongolic language literature, Secret History of the Mongols.

Jochi was born in the aftermath of this ordeal, and though Genghis Khan treated him without hesitation as his eldest son, the possibility that Jochi might have been fathered by a kidnapper created tension amidst other descendants—particularly younger brother Chagatai. Jochi was originally seen as the heir to Genghis Khan, but if he was illegitimate, Chagatai was presumably next in line. The infighting between the two siblings would ultimately result in both being excluded from the order of succession in favor of younger brother Ögedei.

So, if one of the men in Jochi’s mausoleum really is the Mongol prince, not only have these researchers confirmed the Y-chromosome lineage of Genghis Khan discussed on the internet for decades, they’ve also resolved a parentage dispute that has raged over centuries.

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