The Chen Clan of the Tang Frontier

The Ordos loop was the Tang empire's northern military frontier, where surrendered Turkic and Sogdian groups were settled. At Naobaowan, an elite frontier family, the Chen clan, buried its dead through the early eighth century, one tomb fixed to 713 CE by its own epitaph. Genomes read alongside those inscribed epitaphs let the researchers rebuild the family's pedigrees. Every core male carried one unbroken paternal line, O2a2b1a1a1a2a. The women who married in carried high West Eurasian steppe ancestry, yet were buried by Central Plains custom, and their sons in turn married local East Asian women. One son-in-law was given a prominent tomb of his own: even a strict patriline bent for a useful alliance. Twelve members of that frontier household are gathered here.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Genomic signatures of female exogamy and cultural interaction in a Tang Dynasty patrilineal clan.

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Chen Clan of the Tang Frontier are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

• 01

  Who were the Chen Clan of the Tang Frontier?

  The Chen Clan of the Tang Frontier (early 8th century CE, Naobaowan cemetery, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China) are one of the Historical figures entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 12 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Genomic signatures of female exogamy and cultural interaction in a Tang Dynasty patrilineal clan".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Chen Clan of the Tang Frontier mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

• 04

  How do I see my own distance to the Chen Clan of the Tang Frontier?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers. Browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

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