? Currie
? Currie is a placeholder for the father of John Currie, whom current genealogical research has not uncovered.
The Currie name has numerous origins. [1]
Given the proximity of John Currie's birthplace of Galashiels to Midlothian, it seems likely that in John's line the name arose as a habitational name, derived from the village of Currie, Scotland. [2].
The name of this former village has two possible origins, according to Wikipedia:
There is no accepted derivation of the name Currie but it is possibly from the Scottish Gaelic word curagh/curragh, a wet or boggy plain, or from the Brythonic word curi, a dell or hollow.
— Wikipedia
Deep Ancestry: The Line of Fathers
Prior to this is a long sequence of ancestors going back to the first cell. Assuming a standard "Line of Fathers" where we trace one patrilineal ancestor back every 25 years, the lineage estimates are as follows:
| Timepoint | Approximate Date | Ancestor Type | Estimated "Fathers" (Generations) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pleistocene | 1 Million Years Ago | Homo erectus | ~40,000 |
| Cretaceous | 100 Million Years Ago | Early Placental Mammal | ~4,000,000 |
| LUCA | ~4.2 Billion Years Ago | Single-celled Organism | ~168,000,000 |
| Origin of Life | ~4.4 Billion Years Ago | First Replicating Cell (Proto-cell) | ~176,000,000 |
For a visualization of how pedigree collapse affects these numbers, see: Pedigree Collapse - How Many Ancestors Do You Really Have? (YouTube)