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Explore the family tree one individual at a time, maintaining a queue of individuals not yet explored. Initially its size is $Y_0=1$. Exploring individual $t$ removes it and adds its independent offspring $Z_t$, so before the queue empties,One may define the independent increments indefinitely, but the tree exploration stops at $T=\inf \{t:Y_t=0\}$. This hitting time is the total progeny, including the ancestor. Since each increment is at least $-1$, a queue cannot jump below zero before hitting zero. If it never hits zero, the family has infinitely many individuals.

Suppose $kp<1$. A Chernoff bound in moment-generating-function form says that for independent $W_j$ and $\theta >0$,Here take $W_j=Z_j-1$, withWe have $M(0)=1$ and $M^{\prime }(0)=kp-1<0$, so some $\theta >0$ has $M(\theta )<1$. Let $c=-\log M(\theta )>0$. If $T>n$, the queue is still positive after $n$ explorations; its integer value is at least one, giving ${\sum }_{j=1}^n(Z_j-1)\ge 0$. ThereforeThis proves the claimed bound without appealing to a general branching-process tail theorem.

The argument proves the more general exponential total progeny tail for bounded subcritical offspring.