In the fifth previous generation we have these slots, to work our way up slowly:
1 set of parents (1)
2 sets of grandparents (2)
4 sets of great-grandparents (3)
8 sets of great-great-grandparents (4)
16 sets of great-great-great-grandparents (5)
where the number in the parentheses is the number of previous generations. So, at the fifth generation previous, we have 16 pairs of ancestors. If two people have four of these in common, their common DNA is 4 / 16 or 1 / 4 or 25%.
First cousins were 50%. Second cousins have 4 pairs of great-grandparents and they share one pair of these. Their common DNA is 25%.
Our hypothetical example, of the last note, in which two people share four pairs of ancestors, at the great-great-great-grandparent level, would be equivalent to being second cousins.
In the case of the Hutterites, where there are lots of sixth, fifth, fourth, and, perhaps, third cousin relationships between two people, there is a situation where the net relationship is close to a second cousin relationship, or, perhaps, even a first cousin relationship.
A close kin relationship can come about because the common ancestors were near in time, or it can come about because there are lots of paths to more distant ancestors.
(10 Sep 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.