My wife is from the Philippines, and we have no idea when her ancestors arrived there. My grandparents were all born in Finland, and we have no idea when my ancestors arrived there.
However, through DNA testing my wife and I do now have some idea of our ancestral origins from tens of thousands of years ago on their journeys from the origin of mankind in Africa.
If mankind originated in Africa, then at sometime many many years ago, my wife's and my ancestors must have been parts of the same "group" of people, people with similar appearances, language, lifestyle, etc. At some point in time my ancestors headed off to what we now call Finland, and my wife's ancestors took a different direction, ending up in the Philippines.
Through our DNA testing and my internet research, I was able to discover that between 54,400 and 58,600 years ago, my wife's ancestors and my ancestors were part of the mtDNA Haplogroup R, which originated in Southwestern Asia.
I have no idea how many people were in the mtDNA Haplogroup R at that time, but it was fun to look this up, and then to wonder if our ancestors knew each other, or even if they were related.
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