Chinggisids

According to the Secret History of the Mongols, the first Mongol was born from the union of a blue-grey wolf and a fallow doe. Their 11th-generation descendant, Alan Gua, was impregnated by a ray of light^[2] and begat five sons, the youngest being Bodonchar Munkhag, progenitor of the Borjigin lineage.^[3][4]

Kaidu, an early Mongol leader and Genghis Khan's great-grandfather, were initially one of many descendant clans inhabiting the Mongol heartland.^[5] Kaidu's grandson, a Borjigin warrior named Yesügei, was a member of the Qiyat sub-clan; over the next decades, he subjugated or killed all potential rivals, Borjigit or not.^[6] By the time his son, Genghis Khan (born c. 1162), established the Mongol Empire in 1206, the only remaining Borjigit were the descendants of Yesügei.^[7] They formed the royal family that Genghis Khan named, the Altan Urug (lit. 'Golden Womb')—the only people allowed to rule in the empire.

Of these, the descendants of Genghis and his first, primary wife Börte held the highest seniority; the Chinggisid Principle was that this particular lineage—the eponymous Chinggisids—were the only legitimate rulers.^[8] Mongol religious ideology held that the Chinggisids would eventually become rulers of the entire world.^[9]

Because of the Mongol conquests, the Chinggisids became the rulers of most of Eurasia, even after the Mongol Empire split into successor states:^[10] the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate, and the Yuan dynasty.^[11]

The marriage between Börte and Genghis Khan (then known as Temüjin) was arranged by her father and Yesügei, Temüjin's father, when she was 10 and he was 9 years old.^[15][16] Temüjin stayed with her and her family until he was called back to take care of his mother and younger siblings, due to the poisoning of Yesügei by Tatar nomads.^[17] In 1178, about 7 years later, Temüjin traveled downstream along the Kelüren River to find Börte. When Börte's father saw that Temüjin had returned to marry Börte, he had the pair "united as man and wife". With the permission of her father, Temüjin took Börte and her mother to live in his family yurt. Börte's dowry was a fine black sable jacket.^[18][19] Soon after the marriage took place, the Three Merkits attacked their family camp at dawn and kidnapped Börte.^[20] She was given to one of their warriors as a spoil of war. Temüjin was deeply distressed by the abduction of his wife and remarked that his "bed was made empty" and his "breast was torn apart".^[21] Temüjin rescued her several months later with the aid of his allies Wang Khan and Jamukha.^[22] Many scholars describe this event as one of the key crossroads in Temüjin's life, which moved him along the path towards becoming a conqueror.

"As the pillaging and plundering went on, Temüjin moved among the people that were hurriedly escaping, calling, ‘Börte, Börte!’ And so he came upon her, for Lady Börte was among those fleeing people. She heard the voice of Temüjin and, recognizing it, she got off the cart and came running towards him. Although it was still night, Lady Börte and Qo’aqčin both recognized Temüjin's reins and tether and grabbed them. It was moonlight; he looked at them, recognized Lady Börte, and they fell into each other's arms." -The Secret History of the Mongols^[21]

Börte was held captive for eight months, and gave birth to Jochi soon after she was rescued. This left doubt as to who the father of the child was, because her captor took her as a "wife" and could have possibly impregnated her.^[20] Despite this, Temüjin let Jochi remain in the family and claimed him as his own son. Börte had three more sons, Chagatai (1183–1242), Ögedei (1186–1241), and Tolui (1191–1232). Temüjin had many claimed children from other women, but they were excluded from the succession, and only Börte's sons could be considered to be his heirs. Börte was also the mother to several daughters, Qojin, Checheikhen, Alakhai Bekhi, Tümelün, and Altalun. However, the poor survival of Mongol records means it is unclear whether she gave birth to all of them.^[23]

Genghis Khan never had more than four wives at a time, all previously queens of vassal states through conquest.^[24]

According to Western scholars:

• Zerjal et al. (2003) identified a Y-chromosomal lineage haplogroup C*(xC3c) present in about 8% of 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 [Zerjal et al's] sample is representative."^[46] 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 (with the exception of Kazakhstan).^[47]

A white paper by the American Society of Human Genetics Ancestry and Ancestry Testing Task Force, Royal et al. (2010) observed 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.^[48]

In a 2017 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:

Ancient DNA data (Lkhagvasuren et al. 2016) from remains in high-status Mongolian graves dated to 1130–1250 CE revealed MSY lineages belonging to hg R1b, rather than hg C: there are a number of explanations for such findings, but taken at face value, they do not support the Genghis Khan hypothesis for the origin of the widespread Asian expansion lineage (Zerjal et al. 2003).^[49]

• Haplogroup C-M217
  • C2c1a1a1-M407: Carried by Mongol descendants of the Northern Yuan ruler from 1474 to 1517, Dayan Khan, who was a male line descendant of Genghis Khan. According to a study^[when?] analysing Y-chromosome Haplogroups of Mongolic speaking populations, geneticists Sabitov and Batbayar used historical pedigrees (such as the Altan Tobchi and Erdeniin Tobchi) to identify modern Mongolian men who possessed alleged paperwork proving their direct, unbroken patrilineal descent from Dayan Khan. The researchers tested 7 different male line families who were descendants of completely different branches of Dayan Khan's sons. And when the Y-chromosomes were sequenced, all seven matched, sharing the exact same downstream mutations, and determined Dayan Khan had the C2c1a1a1-M407 Y-Haplogroup, and is claimed as the most plausible candidate for the Y-chromosome lineage of Genghis Khan.^{[50][51][failed verification]}
  • C2b1a3a1c2-F5481 (C-M217*-Star Cluster / clade of C2*-ST): Widespread in Central Asia among Kazakhs, Hazaras and ordinary commoner Mongols. The Kerey clan of the Kazakhs have a high amount of the C3* star-cluster (C2*-ST) Y chromosome and it is very high among Hazaras, Kazakhs and Mongols in general.^[52]
    However, in 2017 a Chinese research team suggested that the Y chromosome C-M217*-Star Cluster likely traces back to ordinary Mongol warriors, rather than Genghis Khan, and that "a direct linking of haplogroup C-M217 to Genghis Khan has yet to be discovered."^[53]
    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^[54]
  • C2b1a1b1-F1756: In 2019, a Chinese research team study suggested that Haplogroup C2b1a1b1-F1756^[55] might be a candidate of the true Y lineage of Genghis Khan.
    The Lu clan claimed to be the descendants of Toghan or Khulgen, the sixth son of Genghis Khan. A genetic study of the molecular genealogy of Northwest China shows that some members of Lu belong to Y-DNA haplogroup C2b1a1b1 F1756.^[55] This haplogroup is also observed in the Tore clan from Kazakhstan, who claim descent from Jochi, the first alleged son of Genghis Khan. The most recent common ancestor of the haplotype cluster, which includes the Lu and Tore clans, lived about 1000 years ago. Members of the Huo and Tuo clans, who, according to oral tradition, were close male relatives of the Lu clan, do not share common Y-chromosome lines with the Lu clan.^[56] However, the claim that the Lu clan is descendant of Khulgen is controversial and is disputed by several other studies.^[57][58]

• Haplogroup R1b
  • Research published in 2016 suggested that Genghis possibly belonged to the haplogroup Haplogroup R1b (R1b-M343).^[59] Five bodies, dating from about 1130–1250, were found in graves in Tavan Tolgoi, Mongolia. The authors suggested they were members of the Golden Family, and linked the spread of R1b-M343 to the former territories of the Mongol Empire. The authors also suggested that the Tavan Tolgoi bodies are related either to the Khungirad female lineages of Genghis Khan's Borjigin clan, or to Genghis Khan's male lineage, rather than the Ongud clan.^[60]