Who was Genghis Khan and who are his descendants?
GENGHIS KHAN was the ruler of the biggest empire in the world – and also had many wives and children.
Here’s what we know about the warrior.
Who was Genghis Khan?
Genghis Khan was a Mongolian warrior in the 13th Century.
He is believed to have born as Temüjin, around 1155, near the oldest existing lake, Lake Baikal in Russia.
Khan was a warrior-ruler, and perhaps one of the most famous conquerors in history.
He is the founder and first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire,
Temüjin came to power around 1206 by forging alliances with other clans and overcoming enemies.
He united tribes into a unified Mongolia and then extended his empire across Asia to the Adriatic Sea.
His empire is thought to be the biggest one in the world.
Mongols are invariably associated with terrible tales of conquest, destruction, and bloodshed.
His campaign led to the decline in population as he swept through central Asia and into modern-day China.
But he is also credited with bringing in Mongol law and adopting the Uyghur alphabet.
How many children did Genghis Khan have?
Not only did Khan have a big empire of warriors, but he also happened to have a lot of wives and children, earning him the name “Super Father”.
He was betrothed to Börte at the age of nine. The official marriage age was 12.
He had at least four official sons and five daughters with Börte.
The exact number of children produced by the Mongol warrior is unknown, but it could be extremely high since he is thought to have had around 500 secondary wives.
He would take one wife on his campaigns, leaving his other wives and concubines to manage the empire in his absence
Who are Genghis Khan’s descendants?
As Khan had many wives and children there is a theory that one in 200 people is descended from him.
It all comes from a 2003 historical genetics study.
When sampling DNA from 16 populations across Asia, researchers were surprised to find that nearly one in 12 men on the continent shared an unusual Y-chromosomal lineage – one that they said likely came from Genghis Khan.
Many were sceptical about how the researchers came to this conclusion, as they wouldn’t simply be able to take a swab from the man himself.
But Khan is known in contemporary literature for fathering hundreds of children in this area, so historians and geneticists presume the common origin of the chromosome is of the first Mongolian emperor.
As prolific as Khan’s legacy is, it is not unmatched.
A 2005 study found another Y-chromosomal lineage, also in eastern Asia, which was present in around one in thirty men sampled.
One of his most famous descendants is Kublai Khan.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s wrote a poem about him, entitled Kubla Khan, and he is mentioned in the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song Welcome To The Pleasuredome.
Genghis’ grandson Batu Khan was also a feared warrior.