1,000 years ago sounds like a long time-before the internet, before television, before airplanes, cars and even railroads, before telephones, before electricity, even before movable type. It was before Shakespeare, before Columbus, before DaVinci even.
But, in some senses, human civilization was already on the path to where it is now. Borders were different, but nations had begun to cohere. People walked upright, lived in houses, and spoke languages which were just as sophisticated as modern languages, even though few people could read and write. There were popular songs, and musical instruments. There was agriculture.
This might have been the guy
If you count a generation as 20 years (today lots of people wait until their 30s to have kids, but 1,000 years ago lots of 20 year old women already had a full brood, and the change has been relatively recent), it’s 50 generations.
So, I was pretty amazed to see this article pointing out that all Europeans share at least one common ancestor, and you only have to go back 1,000 years. Forget 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. This is only 50 degrees of everybody, and we are talking blood relatives. Sure, a 50th cousin is pretty distant, it doesn’t necessarily even pose a barrier to marriage and breeding, but it’s still cool. I often tell people, jokingly, that Emma Watson is my cousin. Now, who the hell knows. Maybe she is.
(In 2005, there was a National Geographic documentary called “The Search for Adam” which showed that all human beings have a common ancestor, a male who lived 60,000 years ago. So, the principle was established. This latest research brings it a lot closer to modern times.)
We are a family of man. Literally. If we allow people to starve, we are allowing our family members to starve. If we commit war, we are killing our kin. When rich people hoard money and lord it over poor people, they are screwing their less fortunate cousins.
If we could really absorb the science, feel what it means, it might just make the world a better place.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
Don’t expect this to make us be better toward each other. Remember that the supposed second son killed the supposed first son, his own brother. With that I doubt a 50th cousin stands much of a chance.
True. Civil wars are the bloodiest wars.