London: A British pensioner got the mother of all shocks when he discovered he was directly related to Eve, the world’s first woman who lived 190,000 years ago.
DNA tests found Ian Kinnaird’s family tree went all the way back to the world’s first woman, mirror.co.uk reported on Saturday.
While most struggle to delve beyond our great-grandfathers in ancestry research, the 72-year-old traced his all the way back to the beginning of humanity.
Ian said: “This is a real gobsmacker. I have led an unremarkable life until now.”
He has a genetic marker, L1B1, that can be followed back to an ancient African lineage that has never before been found in Western Europe.
The research team who did the tests — Britain’s DNA — said it made Ian “the grandson of a black Eve”.
Ian has mitochondrial DNA which is passed through the female side, is 30,000 years old and only two genetic mutations removed from the first “black Eve”.
Most people are 200 mutations removed, researchers said.
