class algorithms in a past life... very interesting stuff, reproduction and
life-cycle mathematics.
~Simon
Simon Horwith
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-----Original Message-----
From: dana tierney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 06 January 2004 16:23
To: CF-Community
Subject: Re:Generational Math
I got involved in some family research recently, and found this too. A lot
of Quebec familes go back to just a few boatloads of people. Matter of fact,
they shipped a couple of boatloads of women out for the soldiers who were
the first to arrive. These women were called "filles du roy" or king's
daughters since the crown paid their passage and dowry. Someone in Ontario
with a lot of time has traced out all the descendants of a single resident
of Upper Canada named Nancy Buell. Apparently there are thousands of them,
many still living in Ontario, including my mother, who is considering
attending the reunion this year. It *is* a bit spooky to chat with someone
whose great great grandmother was your great great grandmother's
sister...even spookier is not being able to figure out the relationship, as
we have found on the Irish side. A lot of Irish birth and death records were
burned in some sort of uprising in the early 20th century. So all research
falls back on parish records, which were often in Latin and recorded only
first names of the parents of the child being baptized.
>Depends on how you look at it. First of all, yes the farther you go
back,
>the more "cousin" loving you get. It doesn't take that far at really,
just
>go back 2 or 3 centuries, you would get relatively small populations with
>little geographical movement, you would most likely be marrying a cousin
of
>some sort. Now, once you get past the 2nd cousin level, it's really not
>that big a deal.
>
>If fact, that was the first purpose of genealogy, to make sure that the
>person one was marrying was not too closely related to oneself.
>
>The other way to look at it, is to do the math forward. Take a person
who
>lived 1500 years ago, and assume he had on average, 2 surviving
descendants
>each generation (a fairly conservative number I believe) and you get
>562,949,953,421,312 descendants in the current generation. Obviously
>considerably more then the number of people currently alive. It
basically
>means that anybody you marry now, must be a cousin of some level.
>Especially if you stay within your own ethnic/geographical area (reduces
the
>number of choices considerably).
>
>So in reality, we all are engaged in cousin loving everyday.
>
>--------------
>Ian Skinner
>Web Programmer
>BloodSource
>www.BloodSource.org
>Sacramento, CA
>
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