The real decendants of Genghis Khan still exist. The family lives in Istanbul, the head of the family is Jezzar (Cezzar) Giray is a businessman and lives in London. He decends from the Crimean khan's who deecended from Genghis khan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giray

Given the accountants ancestors come from Scotland,could this Y dna be older than Genghis(Sarmatian).If this marker expanded earlier than Genghis,then by all probability Genghis would most likely have this Y haplotype,but not necessarily be the originator of this marker.

The Turko-Mongol name Giray / Kereit floats around all over the place as a clan name, tribal name, and family name. There's an article about it which I can't access at the moment.

Get the test done, Razib! Think what a positive result will do for your self esteem, macho, and dominance!

Giray dynasty

Selim III's young son, named Qattı Giray, was converted by missionaries to Protestantism and married a Scottish heiress.

The real decendants of Genghis Khan still exist.

uh, a large % of the khalkha mongol (eastern) aristocracy was/is directly descended from temujin.

"khan" did become part of the languague, but not quite the equivalent of Caesar, but rather lower "lord". Iran had about 1000 families of khans if I remember currectly.

The descendents in the direct male line of Genghis still made up the Mongolian aristocracy in the early 20th century, 3/4ths of a millennium later.

Wasn't a character in one of Douglas Adams' novels a descendent of Genghis?

"khan" did become part of the languague, but not quite the equivalent of Caesar, but rather lower "lord". Iran had about 1000 families of khans if I remember currectly.

sure, i know, as my family is of "khan" status. my point is that the timurids, for example, had to establish genghiside ancestry to elevate their status from that of usurpers (i.e., of the chagatai domains).

The Timurids cheated, too. Not in the male line.

Steve, yes -- in the first Hitchhiker book, the man from the Council who's knocking down Arthur's house (and who lies down in the mud to make Arthur move) is the one.

"The descendents in the direct male line of Genghis still made up the Mongolian aristocracy in the early 20th century, 3/4ths of a millennium later."

Big deal! Half of the Mongolians may be Genghiside.

BTW, the Hazara, voted as the dumbest tribe of Afganistan, are all direct descendents of Genghis. Y a mucha honra, ¡Sí señor! (*)

(*) I presume by now el caballero habla español.

Jaimito,

I've always been intereted in the Hazara, as although their Y-DNA contain up to 50% typical Mongolian lines of descent, the other 50% is almost totally R1b - which is probably not the R1b that is so prevalent in Western Europe, but probably the R1b that is found in Eastern Anatolia and Northern Iraq - what is it doing in Central Afghanistan and how did it get there?
Are the Hazara somehow related to the Yu-chih (Aka Tocharians), who migrated from West Asia to China millenia ago, only to be mostly driven out by the Hsiung-Nu about 800 AD??

John,

Is there any connection the Scottish lastname (surname) Gray and this Giray lastname??

Remember Lady Jane Gray?

pconroy

To the best of my knowledge, Hazara (¨ten thousand¨) are reputed to be descendants of a group of surplus Ghengis descendants who settled in north Bactria, extermining local males as behooves to true Ghengisides. There is no record if the people they half-supplanted were Tocharians, a race that disappeared. Dont forget that Macedonians ruled this area for a few centuries. I am sure soon these small historical mysteries will be cleared up by genetic research. The Hazara language (unwritten) seems to be a mixture of Turk and other Central Asian languages. They are despised by other Afgans but lately they find employment in the new regime.

"The Hazara language (unwritten) seems to be a mixture of Turk and other Central Asian languages. "

I believe that the Hazara speak Dari, an Iranian language, rather than any of the Altaic, Central Asian languages.

I have read that the reason they are despised by other Afghans is because of their distinctive, Eastern Asian phenotype (they are referred to scornfully by the Pashtun as "flat noses"). This is quite funny, because in all the photos that I have seen of Hazara, they look quite eurasian, with noses as distended as those of the Uighurs or Uzbeks.

I also recall seeing a group of Hazara strolling around a predominately Muslim suburb in the western suburbs of Sydney a couple of years ago. The Australian government accepted quite a few refugees from the region after the war - seems that the Howard government, not renowned for its largesse towards to Muslim immigrants, felt that the plight of the Hazara was extreme enough for them to deserve succour.

The Girays went to Scotland very recently and kept their name, so nothing to do with Gray. All I know is from Wiki.

I think that it's pretty well established that the Hazara are descendants of a group of Mongols that got isolated there after the Mongol Empire collapsed. They've lost their language and their Buddhist (or pagan) religion and are heavily intermarried, but they're distinguishable from others in Afghanistan.

The last Tocharians survived in two cities in Xinjiang until approximately the time of Genghis Khan. There's Buddhist literature in in two different Tocharian languages.

Laszlo Torday (1998) "The Mounted Archers" comes up with a new theory of the Tokhars. I can't dismiss it but I wouldn't rely on it either. Mallory and Mair's "The Tarim Mummies" has interesting stuff too. The Tokhars remain an open question.

The Tokhars are very interesting, but some of the interest is for the wrong reasons. There's nothing unusual about there being Caucasians on the steppe (the Scythians were mostly Caucasian) and there have always been reports of steppe blue-eyed blondes and redheads. There's no real difficulty with genes filtering in from Europe or Scandinavia, either through migration, intermarriage, or slaving.

What got the Tokhars their original noteriety is that by their language they weren't Iranian or Indian, but "European" -- "centum" vs. "satum". Lots of theories have been spun. It remains possible that the actual truth is indeed unusual and strange, but it will be awhile before we know.

John,

Remember that the Greater Yu-Chih (aka Yuezhi) fled the Tarim basin, ahead of the Hsiung-Nu (aka Xiongnu) and the Lesser Yu-chih remained - the latter assimilated with the invading Turko-Mongols and became the Uighurs of today. The former went on to conquer new lands and found the Kushan Empire which was modern day Afghanistan plus parts of Pakistan and Northern India.

The Kushan empire is perhaps the most important forgotten empire. It played an enormous role in the development and dissemination of Buddhism, and was a key link on the early silk road (connecting India, China, and Persia). Almost no records survive; historians rely on archaeology, and coins are one of the few important sources for dating.