Consider a d-type (d<∞) Galton–Watson branching process, conditioned on the event that there are at least k≥2 individuals in the nth generation, pick k individuals at random from the nth generation and trace their lines of descent backward in time till they meet. In this paper, the limit behaviors of the distributions of the generation number of the most recent common ancestor of any k chosen individuals and of the whole population are studied for both critical and subcritical cases. Also, we investigate the limit distribution of the joint distribution of the generation number and their types.

We consider a continuous-time, single-type, age-dependent Bellman-Harris branching process. We investigate the limit distribution of the point process A(t)={at,i: 1≤ i≤ Z(t)}, where at,i is the age of the ith individual alive at time t, 1≤ i≤ Z(t), and Z(t) is the population size of individuals alive at time t. Also, if Z(t)≥ k, k≥2, is a positive integer, we pick k individuals from those who are alive at time t by simple random sampling without replacement and trace their lines of descent backward in time until they meet for the first time. Let Dk(t) be the coalescence time (the death time of the last common ancestor) of these k random chosen individuals. We study the distribution of Dk(t) and its limit distribution as t→∞.

We study identities for the distribution of the number of edges at time t back (i.e. measured backwards) in a coalescent tree whose subtrees have no mutations. This distribution is important in the infinitely-many-alleles model of mutation, where every mutation is unique. The model includes, as a special case, the number of edges in a coalescent tree at time t back when mutation is ignored. The identities take the form of expected values of functions of Zt=eiXt, where Xt is distributed as standard Brownian motion. Associated identities are also found for the distributions of the time to the most recent common ancestor, the time until loss of ancestral lines by coalescence or mutation, and the age of a mutation. Hypergeometric functions play an important role in the identities. The identities are of mathematical interest, as well as potentially being formulae to use for numerical integration or simulation to compute distributions that are usually expressed as alternating-sign series expansions, which are difficult to compute.

Consider a time-homogeneous Markov branching process. We construct reduced processes, based on whether the length of line of descent of particles of this process are (a) greater than or (b) at most equal to, τ units of time, for some fixed τ ≧ 0. We show that in both cases the reduced processes retain the branching property, but the latter does not retain the time homogeneity. We investigate finite-time and asymptotic properties of the reduced processes. Based on a realization of the original process and a realization of a reduced process, observed continuously over a time interval [0, T] for T > 0, we propose estimators for the different parameters involved, including qτ, the probability that the original process becomes extinct before τ units of time, and f(j)(qτ), the jth derivative of the offspring probability generating function f(s) at qτ when qτ is known. We study the properties of these estimators and derive their asymptotic distributions, under the assumption that the original process is supercritical.