Galton–Watson process

The Galton–Watson process is a branching stochastic process arising from Francis Galton's statistical investigation of the extinction of family names. The process models family names as patrilineal (passed from father to son), while offspring are randomly either male or female, and names become extinct if the family name line dies out (holders of the family name die without male descendants). This is an accurate description of Y chromosome transmission in genetics, and the model is thus useful for understanding human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. Likewise, since mitochondria are inherited only on the maternal line, the same mathematical formulation describes transmission of mitochondria. The formula is of limited usefulness in understanding actual family name distributions, since in practice family names change for many other reasons, and dying out of name line is only one factor.