Descent from Genghis Khan


Descent from Genghis Khan concerns claims of genetic descent from Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan's four sons and other immediate descendants are famous by names and by deeds. Later, several Asian rulers claimed descent from the Borjigin and Genghis, including Timur and Babur. Genghis Khan's descent 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.

Paternity of 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". 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!". All in all, Genghis Khan pronounces the words "Jochi is my eldest son" thrice.
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.
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. 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 Kublaids of China, the Hulaguids of Persia, the Jochids of the Golden Horde, the Shaybanids of Siberia, and the Astrakhanids of Central Asia. As a rule, the Genghisid descent played a crucial role in Tatar politics. For instance, Mamai 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, the founder of the Timurid Dynasty, claimed descent from Genghis Khan. He associated himself with the family of Chagatai Khan through marriage. He 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.
The ruling Wang Clan of the Korean Goryeo Dynasty became descendants of the Genghisids through the marriage between King Chungnyeol 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 and the Giray dynasty, which ruled the Khanate of Crimea until 1783.
Other countries ruled by dynasties with descent from Genghis Khan are Moghulistan, the Northern Yuan dynasty, Kara Del, Khanate of Kazan, Qasim Khanate, the Kazakh Khanate, the Great Horde, the Khanate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Khiva, the Yarkent Khanate, the Arghun dynasty, the Kumul Khanate and the Khanate of Kokand.
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 of China completely exterminated one branch of the Borjigids after an anti-Qing revolt in 1675 by Ejei Khan's brother Abunai and Abunai's son Borni against the Qing. 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.
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 East Europe

After the Mongol conquest of Rus', the Rurik dynasty rulers of Russian principalities were eager to obtain political advantages for themselves and their countries by marrying into the House of Genghis. Alexander Nevsky was adopted by Batu Khan as his son. Alexander's grandson Yury of Moscow married a sister of Öz Beg Khan, but they had no progeny. On the other hand, petty Mongol princelings of Genghisid stock very rarely settled in Russia. For instance, Berke's nephew adopted the Christian name Peter and founded St. Peter's Monastery in Rostov, where his descendants were long prominent as boyars.
The issue of three Russian-Mongol marriages may be traced down to the present. One was the marriage of St. Fyodor the Black, later proclaimed a patron saint of Yaroslavl, to a daughter of the Mongol khan Mengu-Timur. Fyodor's relations with the khan were idyllic: he spent more time in the Horde than in his capital. Male-line descendendants of Fyodor's marriage to the Tatar Princess include all rulers of Yaroslavl and two dozens princely families, which passed Genghis genes to some aristocratic families of Russia. After the 1917 revolution, most of these families fled, leaving no one in Russia.
Gleb, Prince of Beloozero, a grandson of Konstantin of Rostov, was another Rurikid prince influential at the Mongol court. Gleb married the only daughter of Sartaq Khan. From this marriage descends the House of Belozersk, whose scions include Dmitry Ukhtomsky and Belosselsky-Belozersky family.
The most problematic is the marriage of Narimantas, the second son of Gediminas of Lithuania, to Toqta's daughter. The earliest source for this marriage is the "Jagiellonian genealogy", compiled in the 18th-century from Ruthenian chronicles by one Joannes Werner. While the marriage is not impossible, there are no extant chronicles which mention Narimont's wife. This highly uncertain gateway derives particular interest from the fact that the House of Golitsyn, Khovansky and Kurakin princely families are Narimont's agnatic descendants.

DNA evidence

Numerous scientists have created their own theories about the Y-chromosomal haplogroup of Genghis Khan. The proposed candidates include haplogroup C3, haplogroup O3, haplogroup Q, and haplogroup C2.
Zerjal et al. identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the 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 sample is representative." 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.
A white paper by the American Society of Human Genetics Ancestry and Ancestry Testing Task Force, Royal et al. observed of 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.

The Y lineage of Khasar has been identified as haplogroup O3, which is common throughout East Asia and especially Han Chinese. This suggests that Genghis Khan himself may be O3.
In 2017 a Chinese research team suggested that the Y chromosome C2*-Star Cluster likely traces back to ordinary Mongols, rather than Genghis Khan, and that "a direct linking of haplogroup C-M217 to Genghis Khan has yet to be discovered." In a 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
In 2019, a Chinese research team study suggested that Haplogroup C2b1a1b1-F1756 might be the true candidate of the true Y lineage of Genghis Khan. A genetic study of the molecular genealogy of Northwestern China's, shows that the Lu clan claimed to be the descendants of Toghan, the sixth son of Genghis Khan, and belong to Y-DNA haplogroup C2b1a1b1-F1756, which is also closely related to the paternal lineage of the Tore clan from Kazakhstan, which claimed to be paternally descendants Jochi, the first son of Genghis Khan.

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