Descent from Genghis Khan explained

Descent from Genghis Khan in East Asia is well documented by Chinese sources. His descent in West Asia and Europe was documented through the 14th century, in texts written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani and other Muslim historians. With the advent of genealogical DNA testing, a larger and broader circle of people have begun to claim descent from Genghis Khan owing to dubious and imprecise haplogroup identifications. However, while many of Genghis Khan's agnates' resting places are known (e.g. Shah Jahan in the Taj Mahal), none of their remains have been tested to prove or disprove these theories and debate continues (see below).

The family tree of Genghis Khan is listed below. This family tree only lists prominent members of the Borjigin family and does not reach the present. Genghis Khan appears in the middle of the tree, and Kublai Khan appears at the bottom of the tree. The Borjigin family was the imperial house of the Mongol Empire (and its various successor states), dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries.

Diagrammatic family tree

Only selected, prominent members are shown. Khagans (Great Khans who were rulers of the whole empire[1] ) are in bold.

Detailed family tree

Temujin (Genghis Khan) - Founder and Khagan of the Mongol Empire (1206–1227)

See list of emperors of the Yuan dynasty and Yuan dynasty family tree.

Paternity of Jochi

See also: Family tree of Genghis Khan.

Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son, had many more recorded progeny than his brothers Ögedei, Chagatai, and Tolui—but there is some doubt over his paternity. According to The Secret History of the Mongols, the boy was sent to Genghis by Chilger, who had kidnapped his first wife Börte, keeping her in captivity for about a year. In one passage, Chagatai refers to Jochi as "bastard" (although the true meaning of the Mongol term is obscure). To this, Genghis Khan responds: "How dare you talk about Jochi like this? Is not he the eldest of my heirs? That I never heard such wicked words again!" (p255). All in all, Genghis Khan pronounces the words "Jochi is my eldest son" thrice (p210, 242, 254).

Modern historians speculate that Jochi's disputed paternity was the reason for his eventual estrangement from his father and for the fact that his descendants never succeeded to the imperial throne. On the other hand, Genghis always treated Jochi as his first son, while the failure of the Jochid succession may be explained by Jochi's premature death (which may have excluded his progeny from succession).

Another important consideration is that Genghis' descendants intermarried frequently. For instance, the Jochids took wives from the Ilkhan dynasty of Persia, whose progenitor was Hulagu Khan, a son of Tolui who was a son of Genghis Khan. As a consequence, it is likely that many Jochids had other sons of Genghis Khan among their maternal ancestors.

Asia

Asian dynasties descended from Genghis Khan included the Yuan dynasty (Kublaids) of China, the Hulaguids of Persia, the Jochids of the Golden Horde, the Shaybanids of Siberia and Central Asia, and the Astrakhanids of Central Asia. As a rule, the Genghisid descent played a crucial role in Tatar politics. For instance, Mamai (1335–1380) had to exercise his authority through a succession of puppet khans but could not assume the title of khan himself because he lacked Genghisid lineage.

Timur Lenk (1336–1405), the founder of the Timurid dynasty, claimed descent from Genghis Khan. He associated himself with the family of Chagatai Khan through marriage. He never assumed the title Khan for himself, but employed two members of the Chagatai clan as formal heads of state. The Mughal imperial family of the Indian subcontinent descended from Timur through Babur and also from Genghis Khan (through his son Chagatai Khan).

The ruling Wang Clan of the Korean Goryeo dynasty became descendants of the Genghisids through the marriage between King Chungnyeol (reigned 1274–1308) and a daughter of Kublai Khan. All subsequent rulers of Korea for the next 80 years, through King Gongmin, also married Borjigid princesses.

At a later period, Tatar potentates of Genghisid stock included the khans of Qazan and Qasim (notably a Russian tsar, Simeon Bekbulatovich, formally Grand Prince of All Rus' from 1575 to 1576, died 1616) and the Giray dynasty, which ruled the Khanate of Crimea until 1783.[3]

Other countries ruled by dynasties with (potential) descent from Genghis Khan are Moghulistan (through Chagatai Khan), the Northern Yuan dynasty (Kublaids), Kara Del (through Chagatai Khan), Khanate of Kazan (through Jochi), Qasim Khanate (through Ulugh Muhammad), the Kazakh Khanate (through Urus Khan), the Great Horde (remnant of the Golden Horde), the Khanate of Bukhara (Shaybanid dynasty, later Janid dynasty, descendants of Astrakhanids), the Khanate of Khiva (descendants of Shiban, the fifth son of Jochi), the Yarkent Khanate (through Chagatai Khan), the Arghun dynasty (claimed their descent Ilkhanid-Mongol Arghun Khan),[4] the Kumul Khanate (through Chagatai Khan) and the Khanate of Kokand (Shaybanid dynasty).

The khans of the Khoshut Khanate were indirect descendants. They were descendants from a younger brother of Genghis Khan, Qasar.

As the Russian Empire absorbed Turkic polities, their Genghizid rulers frequently entered the Russian service. For instance, Kuchum's descendants became Russified as the Tsarevichs of Siberia. Descendants of Ablai Khan assumed in Russia the name of Princes Valikhanov. All these families asserted their Genghisid lineage. The only extant family of this group is the House of Giray, whose members left Soviet Russia for the United States and United Kingdom.

The Qing dynasty of China completely exterminated one branch (Ligdan Khan's descendants) of the Borjigids after an anti-Qing revolt in 1675 by Ejei Khan's brother Abunai and Abunai's son Borni against the Qing.[5] The Qing emperors then placed the Chahar Mongols under their direct rule. The emperors of the Qing dynasty and the emperor of Manchukuo were also indirect descendants by Qasar, a younger brother of Genghis Khan. Their ancestry traces Horchin princes established matrimonial relationship with the imperial family of Aisin Gioro.

The Crimean Khanate Khan Meñli I Giray was the maternal grandfather of Suleiman the Magnificent through his daughter, Ayşe Hafsa Sultan. Thereafter, the Ottoman dynasty also claimed descent from Genghis Khan through his son Jochi.

Russia and eastern Europe

After the Mongol invasion of Rus', members of the Rurikid dynasty of Rus often sought marriages with Mongol princesses. Many of these marriages were sought for military and political advantage, as the Russian princes were often feuding with each other. A marriage alliance with the Mongol horde gave them better leverage in their struggles against each other.

After spending several years at the Mongol court, Yury of Moscow sought to marry Konchak, a sister of Öz Beg Khan, which the Khan gave consent to. Konchak converted to Christianity, and was given the baptismal name Agatha.[6] This marriage was a strategic political alliance that transformed Moscow in to the newest regional power in Russia, and severely weakened the power away from the Russian Prince of Tver, formerly a major power prior to the Mongol invasions.[7]

Members of the Mongol royal families played a significant role in Russia. Berke's nephew adopted the Christian name Peter and founded St. Peter's Monastery in Rostov, where his descendants existed for centuries as boyars.[8]

Gleb, the Russian Prince of Beloozero, married the only daughter of Sartaq Khan. She was given the baptismal name Theodora in the year 1257. From this marriage descends the House of Belozersk, whose scions include Dmitry Ukhtomsky and Belosselsky-Belozersky family.

St. Fyodor the Black married a daughter of Mengu-Timur. She was baptized and given the Christian name Anna. Male-line descendants of Fyodor's marriage to the Tatar Princess include all rulers of Yaroslavl (from then on) and over 20 princely families (such as the Shakhovskoy, Lvov, or Prozorovsky, among others). After the 1917 revolution, some of these families were expelled from Russia.

According to Marie Favereau, a feeling of mutual respect between the Russian and Mongol sides had developed. The fact that Russian princes could marry Mongol princesses was a sign that Mongol lords trusted their northern vassals. She also notes that, even after the adoption of Islam by the Mongol khans, the Mongols never took Russian women as concubines, unlike the Ottoman sultans.[9]

DNA evidence

Scientists have speculated about the Y-chromosomal haplogroup (and therefore patrilineal ancestry) of Genghis Khan.

Zerjal et al. (2003) identified a Y-chromosomal lineage haplogroup C*(xC3c) present in about 8% of men in a region of Asia "stretching from northeast China to Uzbekistan", which would be around 16 million men at the time of publication, "if [Zerjal et al's] sample is representative."[10] The authors propose that the lineage was likely carried by male-line descendants of Genghis Khan, because of its presence in certain ethnic groups rumored to be their descendants. One study published in the Russian Journal of Genetics found that 24% of Mongolians carry this haplogroup, and that it occurs in low frequencies in neighboring Turkic states (with the exception of Kazakhstan).[11]

A white paper by the American Society of Human Genetics Ancestry and Ancestry Testing Task Force, Royal et al. (2010) observed the Zerjal et al. hypothesis:

Although such a connection is by no means impossible, we currently have no way of assessing how much confidence to place in such a connection. We emphasize, however, that whenever formal inferences about population history have been attempted with uniparental systems, the statistical power is generally low. Claims of connections, therefore, between specific uniparental lineages and historical figures or historical migrations of peoples are merely speculative.[12]

In a 2017 review paper published in Human Genetics, authors Chiara Batini and Mark Jobling cast doubts on Zerjal's 2003 theory that Genghis Khan is linked to haplogroup C:

Ancient DNA data (Lkhagvasuren et al. 2016) from remains in high-status Mongolian graves dated to 1130–1250 CE revealed MSY lineages belonging to hg R1b, rather than hg C: there are a number of explanations for such findings, but taken at face value, they do not support the Genghis Khan hypothesis for the origin of the widespread Asian expansion lineage (Zerjal et al. 2003).[13]

Proposed candidate haplogroups and haplotypes

Over the years, following haplogroups have been proposed as candidates:[14]

Popular culture

See also

References

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Book: Morris., Rossabi. The Mongols : a very short introduction. 2012. Oxford University Press. 9780199841455. Oxford. xxi. 808367351.
  2. Book: Weatherford, Jack . The Secret History of the Mongol Queens . 2010 . Broadway Paperbacks, NY .
  3. According to some scholars, the Girays were regarded as the second family of the Ottoman Empire after the House of Ottoman: "If Rome and Byzantium represented two of the three international traditions of imperial legitimacy, the blood of Genghis Khan was the third. ... If ever the Ottomans became extinct, it was understood that the Genghizid Girays would succeed them." (Simon Sebag Montefiore. Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000, p. 244).
  4. The Travels of Marco Polo – Complete (Mobi Classics) By Marco Polo, Rustichello of Pisa, Henry Yule (Translator)
  5. https://books.google.com/books?id=fMfbAgAAQBAJ&dq=burni+manchu&pg=PA51 Li & Cribb 2014
  6. Book: Benz . Ernst . The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life . 29 September 2017 . Routledge . 978-1-351-30474-0 . 77 . en. "Prince Yuri of Moscow spent several years at the court of the Horde and married Uzbeg's sister Konchak, who was given the baptismal nake of Agatha."
  7. Book: May . Timothy . The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]

    A Historical Encyclopedia ]

    . 7 November 2016 . ABC-CLIO . 978-1-61069-340-0 . 54 . en. "The marriage of Konchak to Yuri was actually a marriage alliance that transformed Moscow into a major power among the Russians while also stripping power away from the Tver', which had been a major power prior to the Mongol invasions."
  8. See the medieval life of St. Peter of the Horde and records of the Petrovsky Monastery.
  9. Book: Favereau . Marie . The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World . 20 April 2021 . Harvard University Press . 978-0-674-25998-0 . 226 . en.
  10. 1180246. 2003. Zerjal. T.. The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols. American Journal of Human Genetics. 72. 3. 717–721. Xue. Y.. Bertorelle. G.. Wells. R. S.. Bao. W.. Zhu. S.. Qamar. R.. Ayub. Q.. Mohyuddin. A.. Fu. S.. Li. P.. Yuldasheva. N.. Ruzibakiev. R.. Xu. J.. Shu. Q.. Du. R.. Yang. H.. Hurles. M. E.. Robinson. E.. Gerelsaikhan. T.. Dashnyam. B.. Mehdi. S. Q.. Tyler-Smith. C.. 12592608. 10.1086/367774.
  11. Distribution of the male lineages of Genghis Khan's descendants in northern Eurasian populations. 10.1134/S1022795407030179. Russian Journal of Genetics. 43. 3. 334–337. 2007. Derenko. M. V.. Malyarchuk. B. A.. Wozniak. M.. Denisova. G. A.. Dambueva. I. K.. Dorzhu. C. M.. Grzybowski. T.. Zakharov. I. A.. 17486763 . 24976689.
  12. Novembre. John. Fullerton . Stephanie M.. Goldstein. David B.. Long. Jeffrey C.. Bamshad. Michael J.. Clark. Andrew G.. 2010-05-14. Inferring Genetic Ancestry: Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 86 . 5. 661–73. 10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.03.011. 20466090. 2869013. 0002-9297. Royal. Charmaine D..
  13. Batini . Chiara . Jobling . Mark . Detecting past male-mediated expansions using the Y chromosome . Human Genetics . 2017 . 136 . 5 . 547–557 . 10.1007/s00439-017-1781-z . 28349239 . 253980891 . 2381/39780 . free .
  14. Shao-Qing . Wen . Hong-Bing . Yao . Molecular genealogy of Tusi Lu's family reveals their paternal relationship with Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son . Journal of Human Genetics . 5 June 2019 . 64 . 8 . 815–820 . 10.1038/s10038-019-0618-0 . 31164702 . 174810181 .
  15. Abilev . Serikbai . Malyarchuk . Boris . Derenko . Miroslava . Wozniak . Marcin . Grzybowski . Tomasz . Zakharov . Ilya . The Y-chromosome C3* star-cluster attributed to Genghis Khan's descendants is present at high frequency in the Kerey clan from Kazakhstan . Human Biology . 2012 . 84 . 1, Article 12 . 79–89 . 10.3378/027.084.0106 . 22452430 . 46684406 .
  16. 10.1038/s41431-017-0012-3. 29358612. 5839053. Whole-sequence analysis indicates that the y chromosome C2*-Star Cluster traces back to ordinary Mongols, rather than Genghis Khan. European Journal of Human Genetics. 26. 2. 230–237. 2018. Wei. Lan-Hai. Yan. Shi. Lu. Yan. Wen. Shao-Qing. Huang. Yun-Zhi. Wang. Ling-Xiang. Li. Shi-Lin. Yang. Ya-Jun. Wang. Xiao-Feng. Zhang. Chao. Xu. Shu-Hua. Yao. Da-Li. Jin. Li. Li. Hui.
  17. Batini . Chiara . Jobling . Mark . Detecting past male-mediated expansions using the Y chromosome . Human Genetics . 2017 . 547–557 . 10.1007/s00439-017-1781-z . 136. 5 . 28349239 . 2381/39780 . 3713050 . free .
  18. Wei . Lan-Hai . Yan . Shi . Lu . Yan . Wen . Shao-Qing . Huang . Yun-Zhi . Wang . Ling-Xiang . Li . Shi-Lin . Yang . Ya-Jun . Wang . Xiao-Feng . Zhang . Chao . Xu . Shu-Hua . Yao . Da-Li . Jin . Li . Li . Hui . Whole-sequence analysis indicates that the Y chromosome C2*-Star Cluster traces back to ordinary Mongols, rather than Genghis Khan . European Journal of Human Genetics . 22 January 2018 . 26 . 2 . 230–237 . 10.1038/s41431-017-0012-3 . 29358612 . 5839053 .
  19. Web site: C-F1756 YTree.
  20. 10.1038/s10038-019-0618-0. Molecular genealogy of Tusi Lu's family reveals their paternal relationship with Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son. Journal of Human Genetics. 26. 2. 230–237. 2019. Wen. Shao-Qing. Hong-Bing. Yao. Du. Pan-Xin. Lan-Hai Wei. 31164702. 174810181.
  21. 10.1038/s10038-020-00857-y. A commentary on molecular genealogy of Tusi Lu's family reveals their paternal relationship with Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son. Journal of Human Genetics. 2020. Liu. Yi. 66. 5. 549–550. 33127984. 226219315.
  22. 10.1371/journal.pone.0161622. 27627454. 5023095. Molecular Genealogy of a Mongol Queen's Family and Her Possible Kinship with Genghis Khan. PLOS ONE. 11. 9. e0161622. 2016. Lkhagvasuren. Gavaachimed. Shin. Heejin. Lee. Si Eun. Tumen. Dashtseveg. Kim. Jae-Hyun. Kim. Kyung-Yong. Kim. Kijeong. Park. Ae Ja. Lee. Ho Woon. Kim. Mi Jin. Choi. Jaesung. Choi. Jee-Hye. Min. Na Young. Lee. Kwang-Ho. 2016PLoSO..1161622L. free.

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