G4BB 53: Can-o-Worms!

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≈≈≈≈≈≈≈   Can-o-Worms!   ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Dear G4BB: I read in the paper that Mitt Romney is related to the Bushes…10C 1R to 41 and 10C 2R to 43…did they get that right?   …Greenie, in Stickemsville

Dear G4BB: Now that it’s looking like Romney vs Obama this November, I’m wondering about the talk of polygamy in his family tree…is it for real? And if so, just a footnote, or significant?  …Lola, in Damnyankeesburg

53.1  It seemed natural to lump these 2 questions together. In answer to the first, the Bush-Romney connection comes from the folks at Ancestry.com…and as far as I can tell, it checks out. Trouble is, this once again highlights a major flaw in our kinship terminology.  If I were to say Abe is Zack’s uncle, this positions them precisely in their family tree: they have a common ancestor…Abe’s father and Zack’s grandfather, who of course is also the father of Zack’s father. Abe is “closer” to this common ancestor than Zack is…1 generation for Abe, 2 generations for Zack. All neat and tidy, nez pah?

53.2  Sadly, not so if Abe and Zack were 1st cousins once removed…again, they have a common ancestor, and because of the “removed,” one is closer to that ancestor than the other. But there is no way to know which! Genealogists solve this problem by calling the closer one “ascending,” and the other one “descending,” but it’s a cumbersome system, not used in general parlance.

53.3  Now considering the Bushes and Romneys…suppose all we knew was that Mitt and 41 were 10C 1R…there would be 2 possibilities, depending on which was ascending and which descending. In other words, given 2 individuals who are 10C 1R, we know that one is the 10th cousin of the other’s father, we just don’t know which.

53.4  Fortunately, in this case people who understand kinship do know which, because 41’s son 43 is Mitt’s 10C 2R, so Mitt must be ascending…if he were descending, he and 43 would be 11th cousins, the sons of 10th cousins. Mind you, this is just a “serving suggestion” to demonstrate how it works…the common ancestor is religious rights crusader Ann Marbury Hutchinson, but her line could be thru one or both of the mothers, not fathers…which it actually is I leave to you as an exercise, as they used to say to school.

53.5  But God bless computers in general and the internet in particular…the profusion of genealogical data has made such discoveries a thousand times more accessible. Remember when Bush 43 and John Kerry were announced as 9C 2R*? And in this case, we did know the lines…Kerry was indeed the 9th cousin of 43’s grandfather Prescott. And Obama and McCain were, at the very least, both 22C 2R and 24C 6 R…but recall, everybody alive today is at least 50th cousin to everybody else, so that’s midway 😉 😉

* I hate to show off, but what can you do…they were also 10C 1R 2 ways…10C 2R…11C 1R…12C 1R…12C 2R…14C…and who knows what else. BTW, this is said to be typical for any 2 living individuals with colonial New England forebears. 

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53.6  As to the issue of polygamy, it’s worm-time, folks! For the brainless Media, the rule is “If it bleeds, it leads.” And they also operate on the nonsensical principle that if a relative of yours does something gnarly, well, you must be guilty too…they won’t come out and say it, but wink wink, nudge nudge. It could be a parent, a sibling, a niece or cousin, or even a long distant ancestor…doesn’t matter…gotcha!!!!

53.7  I saw this one commentary…well, I have to admit it was good to see an old-fashioned word like “rife” being utilized…but what can one make of this: “Polygamy has been absent in his family background for more than two generations.” Does that mean “3 generations” or something else? And where do you start counting generations, with Mitt or with his father? What an utterly useless statement…and shabby journalism to boot.

53.8  Here’s what they should have said: “The last occurrence of polygamy was in Mitt Romney’s great grandfather’s generation.”  See there, now you know something!

53.9  But in answer to the question, it is far from a footnote in the family history, but central to the whole story of Mitt’s line. Why was Mitt’s father George born in Chihuahua, Mexico? Because George’s father Gaskell Romney had resettled there with his polygamous parents in 1884, to escape religious persecution in the US…one of 9 Mormon sanctuaries or “colonies” established across the border. (2 still exist today.)  You may recall that the LDS Church elders ultimately issued their anti-polygamy “Manifesto” in 1890, the price they were willing to pay for Utah statehood. Mitt’s family returned to Utah in 1912.

53.10  What’s really wormy is that polygamous relationships still exist in the US, flying at various levels under the radar, depending on the place…and in a time when there is such a push to redefine marriage as something beyond the traditional one man/one woman, they must wonder what sort of social justice allows their honest beliefs to be ignored, if not outright condemned. At any rate, should Romney become the candidate, all this will be dissected in salacious detail, you betcha. Still, history is history, and I find it fascinating…while oddly enough feeling not the slightest urge to be judgmental…but that’s just me.

53.11  So Chart 184 gives you a simplified overview. Mitt’s 2G grandfather Miles Romney was born in England, and interestingly converted to Mormonism 2 years before emigrating to the US. His wives and children are marked with an asterisk because there is some dispute. Church records list 12 wives, but uncharacteristically there are no further details as to wives or children, leading some researchers to believe this is an error. The Salt Lake Tribune reports there were 6 polygamists in Mitt’s family, and they counted 41 wives. I found all 6, and granting Miles 12, I count 39 wives. It should also be mentioned that engaging in plural marriages was not an individual’s choice, but decided for you by LDS Church elders.

53.12  Other notes: I’m guessing Mitt’s Uncle Lawrence had a middle name, but I didn’t find it. His sister Jane’s middle name appears to be a re-spelling of their mother’s maiden name. Mitt and Jon Huntsman’s father are 3rd cousins, making the 2 candidates 3C 1R. And yeah, I’m sure Obama comes in there somewhere…we’ll see, won’t we? Next week, more from the bottomless mailbag…peace and love.

________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 Mark John Astolfi, All Rights Reserved

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DFHC 2/1/2012

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Ask Cool DABBA

Dear Cool Daddy: As a monster ABBA fan, imagine my glee to see this on the net: ABBA to Release First New Song in 18 Years…I didn’t even know they were back together! What’s the skinny, Minnie?  … from Yohan in Hootersburg

Dear Yohan: Hate to have to burst your bubble, my man, but they didn’t get back together, so technically there is no “new” song, despite the screaming yellow hype. Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad have resolutely declined to perform together, on stage or in the studio, since they last did so in 1982…even for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. (Yeah, I know, but it’s misnamed…think of it as the Baby Boomer Hall of Music and you’ll be OK, altho we’re not sure when…)

What you read about is the release of a remastered CD of their 8th and final album from 1981, The Visitors. It will include the requisite bonus tracks, and one will be “From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel.” Nobody knows exactly what this will amount to, altho the resemblance of the title to “Like an Angle Passing Through my Room,” a lackluster ballad on said LP, suggests it’s some sort of demo…or perhaps a medley of early stages of the song…was it originally about a “twinkling star”? We’ll just have to wait until April 23rd to find out.

But here’s how it all played out 30 years ago. After the release of The Visitors in November of 1981, the four assembled in the studio in May and June of 1982 to work on their next LP. They completed 3 tracks… “You Owe Me One”…“I Am the City”…and…”Just Like That”…but producers Benny & Björn weren’t happy with them, and they took a month’s break. In August, they recorded “The Day Before You Came”…“Cassandra”…and…“Under Attack”…but in their minds, the groove was gone, and they settled for a Christmas release of a double-LP The Singles: The First Ten Years. The group called it quits soon after, last performing on British TV in December of 1982.

Of these 6 final songs, 4 were put out as singles that fall…”The Day…” backed with “Cassandra”…and “Under Attack” paired with “You Owe Me One.” Neither charted in the US, and that was pretty much the writing on the wall. ABBA’s last top 10 US hit had been “The Winner Takes It  All” in 1980 at #8…their last Top 40 record was “When All Is Said and Done” in 1981 at #27. “The Visitors” then tanked at #63, their last US chart entry. But all 4 of these new songs were included in the double Singles album.

“I Am the City” would not see the light of day until 1993, on another compilation album, More ABBA Gold. That’s the “18 years”…well, 19 but who can count anymore?…that the news stories are referring to. The irony in my mind is that even at this late stage, and despite B&B’s misgivings, “I Am the City” and “Under Attack” are 2 of ABBA’s finest recordings ever… and “You Owe Me One” is also quite spiffy…and this isn’t just me saying it, but the consensus of the world-wide ABBAficionado community. Click on the titles and hear for yourself. But what happened to that 6th song, “Just Like That”?

It’s also a top fan favorite, available in several versions on bootlegs for decades…the story goes a cassette was stolen from somebody’s car…or something. Why have B&B refused to release it? Because in 1985, they produced an LP for a Swedish brother and sister team known as Gemini…and “Just Like That” was one of the songs they included. Most agree ABBA’s versions are infinitely better, but the boys insist the Gemini version is the definitive one, and it would be “confusing” to release ABBA’s. Huh? After all these years? And despite all the love? Well, that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

And actually, a chorus of “Just Like That” has been officially released…in the 1994 box set Thank you For the Music…it’s part of a 22-minute medley titled “Undeleted”…in the fashion of the Beatles’ Anthology, this was composed of a whole bunch of demos, early versions, unreleased songs, out-takes, and other loose ends…but nothing in its entirety, only brief snippets.

Thus, when the news of this “new” song first hit, it was assumed the Holy Grail of ABBAdom was about to surface…but no such luck. On the bright side, the other 5 “last songs” are included on this new The Visitors CD…all in once place, for the convenience of latecomers. Anyway, you can check out 2 ABBA versions of “Just Like That”…the “na na na ” version…and the “sax” version…and if it sounds vaguely familiar, the melody of verse, altho not the chorus, was re-used in the musical Chess…which of course was a major post-ABBA project of Benny and Björn’s.

And what the heck, here’s this edition of DFHC‘s own “bonus track”…one of my favorite ABBA songs is “Does Your Mother Know?”…and here’s where the the break comes from…the unreleased “Dream World.”

Wicked Ballsy…

For the record, “Agnetha” is not pronounced AG-netha, like Agnes……but instead anh-YET-ah. And I’m sure you have no trouble remember which is which, but I always did…so several years ago I formalized this mnemonic device:  Everybody knows blondes come from Sweden. So the one who isn’t blonde can’t be Swedish…she must be Finnish!…and that’s F for Frida…done and done…

üppkaftig urtag…

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G4BB 52: Eek! The Ewings!

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»»»»»»   Eek! The Ewings!   ««««««

52.1  In case any of you Dallas fans missed the memo, there will be a new 10-episode series on TNT this summer. Their “official website” doesn’t give a specific date, so I assume it hasn’t been decided yet. The internet buzz says “June,” but maybe that’s only because that’s the earliest summer can come… 😉 😉 At any event, it won’t be a “re-imaging” like that ludicrous Hawaii 5-0…but a continuation of the original story lines.

52.2  The basic plot will be a power (no pun intended) struggle between J.R.’s son John Ross and Bobby’s adopted son Christopher over Ewing oil and the future of energy in general…so who’s green? Watch and find out. But Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, and Patrick Duffy all reprise their roles, and it’s said they have lots to do…not just eye candy to draw in viewers. Other old-timers are promised, but what’s more significant, the producers say they are going to stay true to all the established history of the story…well, maybe except for the “dream season”…lol…and with that in mind, a Dallas family tree seemed in order.

52.3  Now as is typical of the soap opera genre, there were many marriages and re-marriages…and quite a few more liaisons, to use to old-fashioned term. I decided to focus primarily on those that resulted in offspring, since those characters would be the right age to have connections to this next generation.

52.4  Chart 180 is the basic tree…since it’s large, I am also including it below, before the plugs, in a vertical format…if you care to print it out, you could make it bigger without the quality degenerating as much. And since the show also followed the “family feud” soap tradition, I did a separate Chart 181 for the Barnes clan…there was simply no way to fit it on the main chart. Blue/pink outlines for boys/girls, except those who are dead are in a black. Black lines of descent indicate the parents were married…red, not married…green, adoption.

52.5  And altho Dr. Harlan Danvers was only the Ewing family doctor…I had to include him somewhere, since my hometown is also a Danvers. BTW, teal arrows on Chart 181 indicate folks who are also on Chart 180…

52.6  These charts are only the beginning, really…the problem is this: to do it right, you would need to watch all 14 seasons and 357 episodes, plus the prequel and the 2 sequel movies. Time and money prevent this, alas. (And now that I think about it, all of Knots Landing as well…whew!)  Trouble is, what I can find on the internet for the most part concerns characters that actually appeared on the show…I am sure there are many more relations who were mentioned or referenced…and perhaps some inconsistently, as will happen when a show has this long a run. For example, the identity of Miss Ellie’s parents and brother is known, altho they never appeared. It is curious that Jock’s parents…J.R. and Bobby’s Ewing grandparents after all…have not yet turned up, at least I don’t have them.

52.7  Others on the charts that as far as I know were never seen include: Cliff’s siblings who died in infancy, Tyler and Catherine…Uncle Jason Ewing’s wife Nancy…Cliff’s 1st cousin Jimmy Monahan…and Val’s father Jeremiah Clements.

52.8  I am making no effort to chronicle all the childless “hook-ups”…I’m sure somebody has somewhere…but I will mention other marriages. Bobby married Michelle Stevens’ sister April, who is now dead. Ray Krebbs married Jenna Wade, and adopted her son, Lucas Wade Krebbs. Ewing black sheep Gary married Abigail “Abby” Fairgate Cunningham, daughter of neighbors Sid and Karen Fairgate. Donna Culver Krebbs was formerly married to Governor Sam Culver, who is dead, as is his son David. Cliff Barnes was briefly married to Liz Adams. Val Clements Ewing married Ben Gibson…there was a story line about the twins Bobby and Betsy being his, but they are in fact Gary’s…as well as Danny Waleska. And I’m sure there are others I missed, but that’ll get you started.

52.9  So to sum up, since it’s obviously integral to the whole premise of the new series, Jock and Miss Ellie’s grandchildren, besides John Ross, Lucy, Bobby and Betsy, are Margaret Krebbs, James Richard Beaumont, Terrance Harper, Molly Whitaker, and Lucas Wade Krebbs…plus great grandson Jimmy Beaumont. And it will certainly be interesting to see if they remember that Sue Ellen is Christopher Ewing’s biological aunt!

52.10  A couple of other notes…here at G4BB, the term I use for the “i-word” is interbreeding…for individuals whose parents are related to each other. I do this in deference to those with a sensitive nature…but it doesn’t quite sound right when used to describe a relationship where no offspring has resulted. Thing is, there is a narrative element called “accidental i-word“…the classic case of course being Œdipus marrying his mother, and getting extremely upset when he found out that’s what he’d gone and done. Other examples include Star Wars’ Luke and Leia being potential sweethearts until, in his second most dastardly act of faithless storytelling, Gary Lucas decided they were twins…and Marty McFly’s mother falling for him in Back to the Future.

52.11  What’s all this got to do with Dallas? Well, Southfork foreman Ray Krebbs kanoodling with Lucy Ewing, remember? In fact, in the pilot episode, that’s how Pam gets out of a tight jam, by threatening to counter-blackmail Ray with that information…leading to J. R.’s famous line: “I underestimated the new Mrs. Ewing…welllll, I surely won’t do THAT again!”  Of course, it was later revealed that Ray was Jock’s son, and Gary’s half-brother, hence Lucy’s half-Uncle…ooops! But that plot development was so delicious, the writers couldn’t resist, and the early affair was never, but never, mentioned again. Maybe that was just a dream too… 😉 😉

52.12  I also ought to explain several other Ewings you might see mentioned…in the final 2-part episode “Conundrum,” the demonic Adam takes J. R. on a tour of what life would have been like without him. Among other things, Bobby is separated from his wife Annie and has 3 children: John Ross Jr, Ellie, and Bobby Jr. And the “new” 3rd son of Jock and Miss Ellie is Jason Ewing, who’s married to Bootsie. Kind of like the Bizarro World of Dallas, nez pah?

52.13  And finally…not that this is a pre-spoiler or anything…but it should be pointed out that we technically don’t know if Pam is still alive…or at least was when the series ended. She supposedly had a fatal illness, but who can say? Next week, the stuffed-to-overflowing mailbag…bursts! Till then, be good…

Wicked Ballsy

I had this on the blog last week, but I’ll repeat it here for those who missed it…the original cast lineup for the show…interesting, to say the least. Mary Frann landed on King’s Crossing, then Newhart…she died in 1998. Robert Foxworth settled for Falconcrest…

________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 Mark John Astolfi, All Rights Reserved

shameless plugs, as big as Texas itself, where you can drive all day and still be on your ranch…yeah, I had a car like that once…

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and  http://www.examiner.com/retro-pop-culture-in-watertown/mark-john-astolfi

Updated Resume at http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/p/resume.html

Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podbean.com

 

DFHC 1/25/2012

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Ask Cool Daddycat…

Dear Cool Daddy: If you can read this…I’ve been following the Syracuse men’s college basketball team…now 20-1….lost Saturday to Notre Dame, but won Monday against the Cincinnati Bearcats. But it got me thinking: what exactly is a “bearcat” …well, besides the old Stutz Bearcat sports car?  …from Capt. Horatio Herkimer, Cicero NY

Dear Cap: Actually, a bearcat is a lot of things. If you google the word and hit “images,” you’ll see a bunch of pictures of a Southeast Asian omnivore (above, left and right) that resembles a small wolverine (center.) “Bearcat” is a nickname in some locales for the wolverine and also the cougar. This modern day bearcat is more commonly known by its native name, binturong. I say “modern day” because in the past, both the black & white Giant Panda and the smaller Red Panda have been called bearcats, supposedly translated literally from various local languages.

Now at various times, the University of Cincinnati Bearcat has been more bear-like or more cat-like…the current incarnation is on the red background, above, middle of the lower row. But its specific origin is due to a human being…and it goes back to Hallowe’en Day, 1914. The UC football team is playing their arch-rivals, the Kentucky Wildcats, and their star  player is one Leonard “Teddy” Baehr…yes, pronounced “bear.” Behind the chant of “You have the wildcats, we have the Baehr-cat!” they win 14-7, and a cartoon in the paper the next morning shows a “Bearcat” critter chasing down a bedraggled Wildcat. Teddy graduated 2 years later, but the nickname stuck. That’s pretty much the whole story.

But what is a bearcat? As you can see surveying the other school who are also Bearcats, it’s either one or the other or a combination of both…and one school even filches the Marvel superhero Wolverine.

I’ve even seen some prehistoric mammals referred to as “bearcats,” altho ironically enough, modern bears are more closely related to dogs than cats. 60 millions years ago, a group of small carnivores called “miacids” began evolving into 2 lines…bears and dogs on the one hand…cats, civets, hyenas, and mongoose on the other.

Wicked Ballsy

Looks like the Dallas Family Tree won’t arrive till Sunday…and even then, it will only be a rough draft. Lots to sift thru, over 14 seasons  and 357 episodes…plus the 2 sequel movies…and the prequel…sheesh!  But the new show doesn’t debut on TNT till June, so there’s time…in the meantime, here’s a look at the “original” cast…not the way it eventually turned out, is it?

bearless plugcats…

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DFHC 1/18/2012

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Ask Cool Daddy
Speaks Franco-Italian

Dear Cool Daddy: Franco-American canned spaghetti was a staple on Baby Boomer lunch-tables…but am I the only one who noticed that while spaghetti is Italian, “Franco” means “French”? …from Gustav in Peru

Dear Gustav: Yeah, in fact at our house “franco-american” was a generic term for that mushy, orange-colored pasta…if Chef Boy-ar-dee was on sale and Mom fixed it for us, we’d look at our plates and say: “Oh boy, franco-american!” And I really did like it…it had a pleasant little tang to it, as I recall. We would also from time to time have real spaghetti, in a real sauce with meatballs, so we didn’t really think of franco-american as spaghet’, any more than we would noodles or macaroni.

But to answer your question, I think I was vaguely aware that Franco in English meant French, but then it also sounded Italian, so it wasn’t till much later that I noticed the international dichotomy. BTW, “French” in Italian is “Francese”…pronounced fran-chase-ay. “Franco” in Italian means frank, honest, sincere…and also refers to the Franks, who inhabited much of France, Germany, and Northern Italy…in English, the adjective is “Frankish.” But the ultimate explanation is pretty much what you’d expect…Alphonse Biardot came to America from France in 1880 and settled in Jersey City. By 1886, he was running a successful restaurant, and selling products in cans.

His most prominent line was soups, many with a decidedly French twist…green turtle, terrapin, chicken consommé, purée of game, mulligatawny, mock turtle, ox-tail, tomato, chicken gumbo, French bouillon, julienne, pea, printanier, mutton broth, vegetable, beef, pearl tapioca, clam broth, clam chowder, and others. The Franco-American Food Company also made canned sauces, patés, custards, and puddings…in fact, an early advertisement reads: English Plum Pudding made by a Frenchman! Why Not?

They were sold to Campbell’s Soup in 1915, and one can only think that accelerated the ethnic diversification. The earliest I can find Franco-American spaghetti is around 1930…and it was marketed as being in the style of Milan…“à la Milanaise”…which is of course French…in English that would traditionally be “Milanese”…today you also see “Milano”…in Italian “alla Milanese.” There seems to be no agreement as to what style that is today… sauce having cream as a key ingredient…or fennel and sardines…or ham and mushrooms…or who knows???  Back then, it was parenthetically explained as “tomato sauce with cheese”…and it became the Franco-American brand’s flagship product.

Above left is from 1950, right 1955. But as is typical of what I call “merchandising drift,” the basic recipe became “Americanized” to be point where in 1960 (below), they offered an “Italian style” version of an ostensibly Italian product…hey, that’s the Second Plateau!

Wicked Ballsy

With Star Wars and all, I suppose this was inevitable, from the early 1980s…check the TV commercial here. Calling the meatballs “meteors” seems a stretch…you mean, like rocks?

plugs à la shamelessaise…

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Resume at http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/p/resume.html

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A

G4BB 51: We Got More Mail!

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 »  »  »   We Got More Mail!    «  «  «

Dear G4BB: I was helping my granddaughter with her vocabulary homework, and came across an interesting word…”Avuncular,” which means referring to an uncle, or more specifically, to the kindness and generosity typical of a doting uncle. Another word was “Axillary,” referring to the arm-pit, which painted an interesting picture. OK, but anyway, my question is, is there a corresponding word in English referring to an aunt?  …from Bags, in Angola, IN

51.1  Dear Bags: Yes, there is…unfortunately, it is too similar to the adjective for mother…”Maternal”…to be able to be used unambiguously in everyday conversation. For the record, it’s “Materternal.”  Both of these unusual words are from the Latin for your mother’s siblings…brother and sister…the above chart I found was so well-done, I saw no reason to re-do it. Note that “ego” is the fancy-pants genealogical term for “you”…males are triangles, females are circle, which is standard when you can’t do blue & red/pink as I like to do.

51.2  But since it interested me, in Chart 177 I take the terminology back to preceding generations, and it is thus seen that an uncle is a “little grandfather”…avus/avunculus. Why our uncle/aunt words weren’t derived from the father’s side…Patruuous* and Amiternal perhaps?…I couldn’t determine. Yes, Magna, Maior, Maximus mean great, greater, greatest…Maior being Major, since they didn’t yet have the letter J.

* The Oxford Dictionary does list the word “Patruity” as meaning the state of being an uncle, altho it’s labeled as “rare.” “Amity,” on the other hand, is derived from “amicus,” Latin for “friend,” not from “amita.”

Dear G4BB: Last week, in answering the latest query from the DumbGeek Cousin site, you said and I quote: “Everything stated can’t be true simultaneously, except in the most tortuously convoluted way.” I can’t believe you didn’t then proceed to attack that head on…it doesn’t sound like you. Were you feeling ill? I’ll pray for your quick recovery. …from Sr. Agnes St. Tarantula, Principal, Immaculate Conception Boys Military

51.3  Dear Sister Aggie: You are 100% right…and I stand highly mortified and rightfully chastised…bless you. And thanks to the power of divine intervention, I am feeling better, so here goes…

51.4  The question consisted of 3 statements…

51.5  Now last week in G4BB 50 I passed over that 3rd statement, but it is of course also utterly incorrect. Sure, normally a child does in a sense “join” the 2 sides of his family…they are assumed to be unrelated.  But that’s not the case here. The 2 sides of this family are linked all the way back to the multi-G grandfather, as we can see in Chart 178. As a matter of fact, the parents of the questioner are 8th cousins once removed…that’s because the mother is an 8th cousin to the questioner’s paternal grandfather.

51.6  But the whole point of the exercise was that there’s no way of knowing if what I diagrammed really does represent this family, since the other 2 statements are mutually inconsistent…they can’t both be true.

51.7  What should immediately strike you is: if the mother and father go back to a common ancestor by an uneven number of steps, then that ancestor can’t be the same-number-of-G’s to each of them…and consequently, while that ancestor will be a “double grandfather” to the questioner, that “double” won’t then be the same-number-of-G’s either. So that’s the first problem.

51.8  The 2nd problem is just what is meant by “generations” in statement (2). Consider the simplest case of son, father, and grandfather… 

          3 generations…obviously, because there are 3 individuals.
          2 generations…because there are 2 steps from son to grandfather…which is why
the grandfather’s first cousin is the son’s 1st cousin 2x removed.
          1 generation…in between the son and grandfather, which is why the grandchildren
who call the grandfather their closest common ancestor are 1st cousins.

51.9  So depending on the context…1, 2, or 3 generations will all have meaning with respect to you, your father, and your grandfather. Now apply these 3 contexts to your grandfather with X number of G’s…

          X+3…is the total number of generations, counting everyone including you
and the grandfather.
          X+2…is the number of steps between you and the grandfather…his 1st cousin
will be your 1st cousin X+2 times removed.
          X+1…the generations between you and the grandfather…if you and Abe count
him as your closest common ancestor, then you and Abe are (X+1)th cousins.

51.10  And if you’re really math-minded, you’ll notice the rule in 51.9 will apply even to the simplest case given in 51.8…since your grandfather has no “greats” in front of “grandfather,” you can take X, the number of G’s, to be 0…and the math checks…the same way the rules for cousins work if you consider your siblings as 0th cousins. 

51.11  So how do these X Rules apply to the case in point? If “generations” is meant as total generations, in the X+3 sense, then on the mother’s side X+3=10…this is the questioner’s 7G grandfather…and X+3=11 on the father’s side, so he also an 8G grandfather.

51.12  On the other hand, if “generations” is taken as steps from the questioner to the grandfather, then it’s X+2=10 on the mother’s side, 8G grandfather…and X+2=11 on the father’s side, 9G grandfather…and that’s what I used for my chart…we’ll assume X+1 doesn’t apply here, but who knows?

51.13  And of course, neither 7G/8G nor 8G/9G jibes with the 10G stated in (1)…10G means 13 total generations or 12 steps…so the whole thing is completely screwy.

51.14  Which is why, sometimes the answer has to be: I can’t answer that question because it isn’t coherent enough to have an answer. But dear Sister Aggie, that’s not what you asked, it is? You wanted me to sketch it out so that all this conflicting information is in fact simultaneously true. And by this time, it should be obvious that 2 lines of descent…of either 10 and 11 total generations or steps…isn’t going to work. So we simply add another line, and get Chart 179…

51.15  As you can see, all that was needed was to make the questioner’s parents 9th cousins once removed, besides the 8th cousins once removed they were in Chart 178…which is to say, questioner’s mother’s parents are now 7th cousins twice removed. Yeah, I knew that. Yeah, I know you knew that. Next week, the bottomless mailbag continues…by-ee. 

Copyright © 2012 Mark John Astolfi, All Rights Reserved

cousinless 4th plugs, do not remove…

Podcasts at http://stolfpod.podbean.com  and   http://thewholething.podbean.com

Other Daily Blog at http://stolf.wordpress.com  (the legendary Stolf’s Blog)

More bloggage at  http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com

and  http://www.examiner.com/retro-pop-culture-in-watertown/mark-john-astolfi

Updated Resume at http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/p/resume.html

Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podbean.com

DFHC 1/11/2012

>>>>>>  don’t forget to check out Stolf’s Blog  <<<<<<

Ask Cool Daddy’s Fruit Stand

Dear Cool Daddy: A woman I work with says her first computer back in the 1980s was something called an Apricot. I think she’s mixing Apples and….well, you know. So is she fruity or what?  …from Dagwood, in Duluth

Dear Dag: It’s discouraging, isn’t it…when the “lady at the office” is always right and you’re always wrong. But in the early days of what was called “personal computing,” Apple was a major player from the get-go, and so a natural target to be taken down…what better way to attack than with other fruits?…or at least that was the reasoning at the time. Thus the Apricot, with this in-your-face anti-Apple advertising…

Didn’t pan out that way of course, but how could it? Earlier, the Pineapple was not just a competitor, but an out-and-out clone…within months, they were forced to ditch at least the “apple” part of their name. But look at the difference a year made…48 to 64 K..no longer a kit, but assembled…and for $146 less…

Another Apple clone was the…wait for it…Orange+…and the Poppy took aim at IBM, spoofing their iconic rose…

So what else botanical begins with A?…Acorn, of course. Even printers got fruity, with the Gorilla brand Banana model. And furniture from Pearr [sic]…BTW, that Commodore is a Series 4000, successor to the original PET from 1977…it came with its own monitor and 8, 16, or 32 K of memory. The game-changing Vic-20 was still 2 years away.

Don’t forget your surge protector…and a whole “basket” of choices..Lemon, Lime,    Orange, and Peach. So yeah, I guess that’s where the Blackberry came from, nez pah?

seedless plugfruits…

Podcasts at http://stolfpod.podbean.com

or try http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=67859

and   http://thewholething.podbean.com

or http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=75175

Deep Fried Hoods Cups Daily Blog:    https://deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com/

Other Daily Blog at http://stolf.wordpress.com  (the legendary Stolf’s Blog)

More bloggage at  http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com  and  http://www.examiner.com/retro-pop-culture-in-watertown/mark-john-astolfi

Updated Resume at http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/p/resume.html

Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podbean.com

G4BB 50: We Got Mail!

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»  »  »   We Got Mail!    «  «  «

Dear G4BB: Can you really be related to a parent by more than 1/2? …from Einstein Jr., in Outer Mongolia

50.1  Dear Einstein Jr: Absolutely you can…altho it helps if you’re a farm animal, rather than a human being…what genealogists might called “cross-generational interbreeding” would be called “line-breeding”in animal husbandry…and example of which is show in Chart 173.

50.2  Here, if your father is also your grandfather, and your great grandfather, and your etc., your CR is indeed greater than ½…again, there simply isn’t anywhere else for those genes to come from! Also notice that while the CR between B and her father Z is 3/4, the CR between B and her mother A is still ½…but half of that ½ comes from Z, who is also A’s father, as well as B’s. Weird, I know, but keep in mind, these are cows…

50.3   Needless to say, this would be a very unusual situation for human beings…what you’d be more likely to run into is a brother-sister union, along the lines of the Egyptian Ptolemys from last week. In that case, for example, your father would also be your uncle, and your CR would be 3/4, not 1/2. And that’s simply because of the half of your genes you get from your mother, half of those are genes your mother shares with her brother, your father. So you share 1/2 your genes with your father thru him, and another 1/4 you share with your father thru your mother…total = 3/4…see?

 Dear G4BB: I heard on the news that Bobby Kennedy’s grandson Joseph P. Kennedy III is considering running for Barney Frank’s old Congressional seat in Massachusetts. I’ve followed the Kennedys rather closely over the years, and shouldn’t he be IV or the 4th, since he’s the 4th in the family to have that name?  …from Patsy, in Plymouth MA

50.4  Dear Patsy: Good catch, but again, the short answer is “no.” Still,  I’m glad you asked the question, since I don’t believe we’ve yet covered the topic of namesakes here at G4BB. Now as you might expect, there exist, across time and place, many different ways to identify relatives who share the same name. Here in Western society, there are general guidelines, but no hard and fast rules. A family is free to do what they please, even if it isn’t “standard operating procedure.”

50.5   In Chart 174, (A) illustrates the most common practice. And you know, I wondered why I didn’t call the grandfather “Notary Sojak Sr.” But I was thinking chronologically…that is, he wasn’t born a Senior…he was born “Notary Sojak” period…he had to wait 20 years or so till Junior was born, to become a Senior. But consider: if you refer to Martin Luther King Jr.’s father as “Martin Luther King,” this will be confusing, since MLK Jr. is also sometimes called “Martin Luther King” for short. Adding on the “Sr.” eliminates the ambiguity. 

50.6  Now while I said that there are no hard and fast rules, the rule on the use of “Junior” probably comes the closest: it is usually reserved for fathers and sons with the exact same name. Thus, George Herbert Walker Bush’s son George Walker Bush was seldom referred to in the press as “Jr.” The best they could do was use the middle initials…”H.W.” versus “W.”…altho Bush-41 and Bush-43 was a clever coinage. Ironically, Dubya’s childhood nickname was indeed “Junior”…after all, in everyday life, both father and son were “George Bush”…but he always disliked it, thus using it while he was President had the whiff of a dig.

50.7  And you don’t often see the son called “II” since that would imply the father is “I”…which sounds like an emperor or something. But of course, families have their own traditions, and a Sr. can certainly have a II for a son if that’s what they prefer. In Chart 174, (B) and (C) show something else that is close to being a universal rule…when the 2nd namesake is not the son of the first, II is preferred to Jr. In (B) it’s a grandson, and in (C) it’s a nephew. But if they choose to call the grandson “Jr.”, they just do.

50.8  Where you see the greatest divergence in usage is when one of several namesakes in no longer living. In (D), I’m assuming that Jr. died before his son was born…and that son may be called “II”, since he is the now the 2nd of the living Notary Sojaks…or he may be called “III” in deference to his father. Either works. Reminds me of a wedding announcement I once clipped from the paper…interesting because the bride’s first name had 4 consecutive vowels…and the groom…it said he was 31 years old, so I doubt all 5 of “them” were still alive.

50.9  Which brings us around to the Kennedys. Joe and Rose’s first son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., was the “standard-bearer” of the clan, expected to one day become president. He was killed in action in 1944, shot down over the English channel…and the mantel was passed to the #2 son, John Fitzgerald. Skip ahead to 1951, when the 29 grandchildren started arriving. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was born in 1951 to Robert and Ethel, the first of her generation of Kennedys.

50.10  The following year, her brother Joseph Patrick Kennedy II came along. The story goes he was named after his late uncle, altho obviously he shares his name with his grandfather as well. And here we see where the matter of family preference comes into play…he certainly could have been III, but that was not how they chose to do it. Thus, his son is III. One interesting sidelight…the next of Robert and Ethel’s 11 children was Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. …it does seem odd that the “III” would be older than the “Jr.”, but of course they’re namesakes of different people. (BTW, there is an RFK III…)

50.11 And while I’m thinking of it, you’re likely to see the word scion in the paper in connection with this developing story. No, its not a car…it’s a descendent, altho its original meaning is a living portion of a plant cut off and grafted elsewhere. It comes form an Old English word meaning to split or gape.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

50.12  You know how sometimes, a question will be asked that displays so little understanding of what they’re talking about that you’re barely able to fashion an answer. The latest post at “DumbGeek”s notoriously bad Cousin page comes close to that…

50.13  The first thing that should jump out at you is this: if the path to Gramps on the father’s side of the family has more steps than the path on the mother’s side, then Gramps can’t be a grandfather with the same # of G’s to this individual on both sides. Well, it’s not technically impossible, but much more complex than I suspect what this poor soul is trying to describe here.

50.14  The second problem is what precisely is meant by “it’s 10/11 generations.” Taking the simplest case of a parent and child, together they represent 2 generations…but from the child to the parent is just 1 generation “up,” which is why the parent’s 1st cousin is the child’s 1st cousin once removed. Bottom line: the question is inconsistent…everything stated can’t be true simultaneously, except in the most tortuously convoluted way. So for my analysis, I’ve assumed that “10 generations” is what’s correct, and it means 10 generations “up” from the individual, so his generation is not counted as one of the 10…same thing for “11 generations.”

50.15  And if that really is the case, then Gramps is this person’s 8G Grandfather on the mother’s side, 9G on the father’s side. Unless of course, Gramps really is a 10G on some side, which means “10 generations” and “11 generations” is wrong…and Gramps would then be either both a 9G and 10G…or a 10G and 11G. Either way, Gramps is, as we saw above with Cleopatra’s family, a type of “double grandfather,” and slightly more related to this individual than if he were a normal “single” grandfather.  Next week, more from the mailbag…bye 4 now…

What’s the Dang Deal?

Here are 2 close-ups from Chart 176…I disguised this with a background color, but where did all these little colored bits come from? Text and graphics for G4BB are normally done on an Apple laptop, but occasionally I use a Windows machine, as with Chart 176…and naturally, I used solid lines and colors…and got this mess? Any geeksters out there know why…and how to prevent it? I’d ‘preciate it…

Copyright © 2012 Mark John Astolfi, All Rights Reserved

shameless Jr. plugs III…

Podcasts at http://stolfpod.podbean.com

or try http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=67859

and   http://thewholething.podbean.com

or http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=75175

Other Daily blog at http://stolf.wordpress.com  (the legendary Stolf’s Blog)

More bloggage at  http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com  and  http://www.examiner.com/retro-pop-culture-in-watertown/mark-john-astolfi

Resume at http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/p/resume.html

NEW!   >>>>>   Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podbean.com/   <<<<<<

DFHC 1/4/2012

>>>>>>  don’t forget to check out Stolf’s Blog  <<<<<<

Ask Cool Daddy Crosses the Line

Dear Cool Daddy: I heard on the news that for the new year, Samoa is moving to the other side of the International Date Line…how is such a thing even possible? …from Torchy in Tulsa

Dear Torchy: At the outset, I should mention that Stolf…my partner in crime on 1340 WMSA radio in Massena, NY…is a real geography nut. Give him an atlas and he’ll sit enthralled for hours…and he helped me no end with this answer.

There are many misconceptions about the International Date Line. You may hear it said that it’s an “imaginary” line…well, it isn’t a physical feature, like a road or a river, but it’s still as real as any municipal border, line of longitude or latitude, or for that matter the poles. Which is to say, it exists in a specific place, and you are either on one side of it or the other. In fact, the IDL is defined as the 180º meridian…but as you can see at left, marked out in red, it zigs and zags about quite a bit.

That’s because contrary to what you might think, there is no international law or even signed treaty that determines its precise path. Any local jurisdiction is free to bend it this way or that to their convenience. And if an island in the Pacific says it’s Tuesday there, when you think it really should be Monday there, what’s the point of arguing? (And as we’ll see below, this holds true for all of the 24 time zones as well.)

Thus, the IDL is skewed way to the west so that the Aleutian Islands can be on the same day as the rest of Alaska. Further south, it swings way to the east to include the nation of Kiribati (the former Gilbert Islands for you stamp collectors) in the “next day,” way ahead of apparent schedule. In fact, the Media called the world’s attention to this radical jog in the run-up to the Year 2000, suggesting this was done so that Kiribati’s tourists would be the first to greet the new Millennium, albeit a year early. In reality, while Kiribati certainly didn’t ignore the tourism angle, the change had been made in 1995 for the practical reason that its 32 islands crossed the IDL, and why wouldn’t you want your entire population, all 100,000 of them, on the same page…which is to say, day? 

One final interesting thing about the IDL is this: if you were standing on the eastern side of the 180º meridian at a minute past midnight, then stepped over to the western side, what time would it be? Answer: it would still be 12:01AM, just the next day…the IDL is in fact in the middle of a time zone, not on either end of one.

Now above left is what it sounds like Samoa did, and on the right is what in fact happened, as I’m sure by now you’ve guessed. They didn’t move the country, they just moved the line. This was accomplished by having Thursday 12/29/2011 followed directly by Saturday 12/31/2011. Yes, for the Samoans, Friday 12/28/2011 simply never existed…if that was your birthday or anniversary, you simply made other arrangements, just as the Feb. 29ers do 3 years out of 4. This was done because their major trading partners, Australia and New Zealand, were a day ahead, and this was naturally inconvenient. And oddly enough, this reverses the decision they made back in 1892 to move across the IDL from west to east, to be more in line with Hawaii and California…they did that by having 2 July 4th’s in a row!

BTW, this change does not effect American Samoa, the tiny speck shown above, inset top left. The 2 bigger islands were British Samoa, then German Samoa…then after WWII, British again, administered by New Zealand. They gained independence in 1962 as Western Samoa, and were renamed simply Samoa in 1997…altho American Samoa still refers to them as Western Samoa…only now, in 2012, a day later!

Wicked Ballsy

The 24 international time zones are fascinating in themselves…as you can see with the bars of color at the bottom of this map, and the corresponding clocks at the top, each zone is 10 degrees of longitude in width, but which zone a country or part of a country chooses to align itself with is quite chaotic. 2 of the worst cases are China, spanning 5 time zones, and Alaska covering 4 time zones…yet each chooses to have its entire area on the same time! Thus, in far western China for example, step over into India an lose 3 hours…which I suppose is no weirder than having noonday sun overhead at 9AM…but at least a business in the far east doesn’t have to calculate what time it is for their supplier in the far west…it’s the same time for both!

tomorrow’s shameless plus today!…

Podcasts at http://stolfpod.podbean.com

or try http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=67859

and   http://thewholething.podbean.com

or http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=75175

Deep Fried Hoods Cups Daily Blog:    https://deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com/

Other Daily Blog at http://stolf.wordpress.com  (the legendary Stolf’s Blog)

More bloggage at  http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com  and  http://www.examiner.com/retro-pop-culture-in-watertown/mark-john-astolfi

Updated Resume at http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/p/resume.html

Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podbean.com

G4BB 49: 5 Worst Mistakes

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5 Worst Mistakes in Genealogy

As Bob and Doug McKenzie say on their “12 Days of Xmas” record…listen and don’t get stuck!

49.1  Mistake #1…2nd Cousins…Some people think the tomato is a fruit…some people think we never actually went to the Moon, altho at the same time, Elvis is living there now. This can’t be helped. All you can do is set a good example and hope for the best. As we move past the everyday kinship of parents, grandparents, uncles & aunts, siblings, and 1st cousins…we encounter 3 types of relationships that today are less important in our lives, hence less well understood: our 1st cousins’ offspring…our parent’s 1st cousins…and the offspring of our parents’ 1st cousins. Notice that the first is of the succeeding generation to ours…the second is of the preceding generation…and only the third is of our generation, on the same “level,” and the same distance from a common ancestor, that being 3 steps down from a great grandparent.

49.2  The key rule to remember is: “Numbered” cousins are of your generation…and numbered cousins removed are numbered cousins to someone in your direct line, just not to you! Thus 1st cousins are descended from your parents’ siblings…2nd cousins from your grandparents’ siblings, 3rd cousins from your great grandparents’ siblings, etc. They are all “numbered” cousins, not removed, because they are of your generation. Your parents’ cousins are once removed from you…your grandparents’ cousins, twice removed…etc. And just as you call your grandparent’s 1st cousin your “1st cousin twice removed,” from your grandparent’s 1st cousin’s point of view, you are his “1st cousin twice removed.” This explains why your own 1st cousin’s grandchild is your also 1st cousin twice removed…it works the same whether you are on the “younger” end (the other person is “ascending) or the “older” end (the other person is “descending”) of the relationship.

49.3  Yes, I know…dictionaries today have for the most part abrogated their mission to give the correct meaning of words, and now merely report what’s generally done, mistakes and all. But trust me, you’re never going to get anywhere in genealogy if you get this wrong…you’ll be pitied by the generous, and ridiculed by the rest. Plus no one will know what you’re talking about, because you yourself don’t know what you’re talking about.

49.4  Mistake #2…Great or Grand Uncle…Both are acceptable terms for your parent’s uncle…in fact, there are legal decisions that say they are interchangeable, for the purposes of interpreting wills, etc. But there is a disconnect…according to Google hits, “great uncle” is used 8 times as often as “grand uncle,” but “great nephew” is 1 2/3 times as common as “grand nephew.” More surprisingly, “great aunt” is 13 times as common as “grand aunt,” but “great niece” is  twice as common as “grand niece.”

49.5  At any rate, many involved in genealogy prefer “grand” for the first generation uncle beyond your father, followed by “greats” for all the rest, the same way it’s done with grandparents and great grandparents. This means that far back in your family tree, brothers will have the same number of G’s-for-great…in other words, your 4G grandfather is the brother of your 4G grand uncle. Otherwise, your 4G grandfather’s brother would be your 5G uncle, and that 4 vs. 5 is bound to cause confusion, get it?

49.6  Mistake #3…Step versus Half…A dog is not a cat…and a half-brother is not a step-brother. Saying one when you mean the other is like saying “horse” when you mean “cow.” Steps are the relatives of your parent’s spouse who isn’t your parent. Typically, you aren’t related to your steps. Halfs are related to you…you share one parent, but not both. Thus halfs are consanguineal relations (thru blood), steps are affinal relations (thru marriage). Chart 168 shows half-sisters and step-sisters in both the traditional and Parental Tree diagrams.

49.7  But oddly enough, a step could be a half under the right circumstances. Say for example, Mike and Carol from The Brady Bunch had an affair while their respective spouses were still alive, and little Cindy was the result. She would then be a half-sister to Marcia and Jan, and also to Mike’s 3 boys. If the spouses then died, and Mike and Carol  married, Cindy and the boys would be, by definition anyway, both half-siblings and step-siblings…altho in everyday life, probably just plain “siblings”

49.8  Mistake # 4…Multiple Relations… In the vast majority of cases, you and a relative are related in only one way…you are brother and sister, grandparent and grandchild, uncle and nephew, etc. You grow up assuming that, for example, since he’s your uncle, he can’t be your anything else.  And for everyday kinship classification, that makes perfect sense. When there are the multiple relationships the closest one tends to “trump” the others in terms of how you describe your relationship…and this simplification is certainly practical. But while not thought of in everyday life, those “other” relationships are just as real.

49.9  And this isn’t some fussy academic technicality…the effect of those relationships is cumulative, which is to say, you add them together and the resulting total means 2 individuals are more closely related than just the one “primary” relationship would suggest. A typical example is double 1st cousins…that is, 1st cousins on their fathers’ side, because their fathers are brothers…and 1st cousins on their mothers side, because their mothers are sisters.

49.10  Now the Coefficient of Relationship between “single” 1st cousins is 1/8…the chances of 2 1st cousins sharing any given gene from their grandparents is 1 in 8. But with double cousins, since this 1/8 possibility exists independently on both sides of the family, there are 2 different sets of genes that can be shared, not just one set. So your chances naturally double. Thus the CR between double first cousins is 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4…and where the degree of relationship is important, in legal or medical matters for example, this becomes relevant.

49.11  Indeed, we all have a sense that the children resulting from a brother/sister union are more closely related than “normal” siblings…but perhaps you never really stopped to think why that is…cumulative kinship supplies the answer. And so as not to offend anyone, let’s take Cleopatra and the Ptolemy clan as an example.

49.12  Geez Stolf, can’t you do any better than that?  I know…I told Cool Daddy he could do a chart…I should have known better…here, how about this…

49.13  OK then…Cleopatra VII is “our” Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra…and you might notice that her mother is only “V”…that’s because our Cleo had an older sister also named Cleopatra, which historians consider Cleopatra VI. I might also mention that nobody really knows who Cleo and her siblings’ mother was exactly…it’s assumed it was her father’s wife, but given the way the Egyptian royals carried on, that’s only an assumption. Further, it is also assumed that Cleo’s parents were brother and sister…altho that might have been full or half…but they could have been merely some manner, simple or complicated, of “cousin.”

49.14  But assuming the parents are siblings, Cleo and her sister Berenice are not only siblings, they are also double 1st cousins…you can verify this by applying the “Doubling Rule” from 46.11…

            Cleo’s father is the brother of Berenice’s mother = 1st cousins
            Cleo’s mother is the sister of Berenice’s father = 1st cousins

This gives the sisters a CR of 1/4…but the fact that there are only 2 individuals involved as parents, as opposed to 4 individuals with non-interbred double 1st cousins, means there’s another CR of ½ (siblings)…for a total of 3/4. The chances of such “super-sibs” sharing any one gene from their grandparents is 3/4, since there simply aren’t that many grandparents, or different sets of grandparent’s genes, to “go around”…dupes are inevitable, and in the case of harmful recessive genes, those bad traits will express themselves, with unpleasant results.

49.15  And it’s very likely the CR was even higher, based on whatever other ways their parents might have related to each other…after all, the interbreeding didn’t start with them! The thing that stumps people is this: can Cleo’s mother really also be her aunt? If her mother is her father’s sister, then absolutely. Likewise, Cleo’s father is her uncle, being her mother’s brother. In Chart 171, the 3 diagrams start with a “normal” aunt and morph it into a “mother/aunt.”

49.16  Mistake #5…What’s a Generation?…Confusion results if you don’t realize that the genealogical meaning of “generation” is different from the everyday meaning. Your generation in the common sense refers to your “contemporaries”…those who are about the same age as you. These can be grouped together into larger “formal” generations…The Baby Boomers, the WWII “Greatest” Generation, the Jazz Agers of the Roaring Twenties, etc.

49.17  But in genealogy, a generation refers to all individuals who are descended by the same number of steps from a common ancestor…and the difference is, they need not be “about the same age.” A good example is Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. They were about the same age, he being almost 3 years older than she was. But they belonged to different generations of their family, he being her father’s 5th cousin, and thus her 5th cousin once removed. Yes, it goes back to the “numbered” non-removed cousins…they, along with your siblings, are your genealogical generation, no matter what your chronological ages may be. And that’s how, genealogically, a person can belong to 2 generations at once.

49.18  As we can see in Chart 172, X is the result of a “cross-generational” union…that of 2nd cousins once removed. X is a member of his own generation, one down from his mother. But he is also a member of his mother’s generation, since both he and his mother are one step down from a pair of 2nd cousins, who of course are of the same generation. Weird, I know, but that’s how it works. Next week, we hit the old feedbag…sorry, mailbag. Happy New Year, dear friends!

Copyright © 2012 Mark John Astolfi, All Rights Reserved

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