Mayflower-blue blood
Jin
The Mayflower-blue blood's flowing in his veins.
What exactly the Mayflower-blue blood means?Were his ancestors of noble
birth? I heard there was no noble man among the Mayflower passengers though.
Jin.
Franke
Jin wrote:
I've never heard or read that expression, but I take it to refer to people
who can trace their ancestry back to the original settlers of Massachusetts
Bay Colony, the Puritans who arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620. I
wouldn't call them "blue bloods", though, but then my ancestors did
not arrive in the USA until the 20th century and were illiterate peasants.
Robert Lipton
It refers to someone whose ancestors came across on the Mayflower and
who presently enjoys a position as a Boston Brahmin.
Bob
Armond Perretta
"Franke" <fra...@seed.net.tw> wrote ...
> Jin wrote:
>
> > The Mayflower-blue blood's flowing in his veins.
> >
> > What exactly the Mayflower-blue blood means?Were his ancestors of noble
> > birth? I heard there was no noble man among the Mayflower passengers
> > though.
>
> who can trace their ancestry back to the original settlers of
> Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Puritans who arrived at Plymouth Rock in
In the US the color of one's blood is assumed to change from a reddish tint
to a shade of blue, once it has flowed through the family's veins for a
certain period of time within the national borders. Exceptions to this
rule are based largely on a belief in the insignificance of native
populations.
This physiological change is probably a result of our compressed sense of
history, which often puzzles some of our European cousins. Two bodies of
land separated by a sense of calendars.
--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://members.tripod.com/kerrydeare
John Varela
> It refers to someone whose ancestors came across on the Mayflower and
> who presently enjoys a position as a Boston Brahmin.
The Mayflower "Pilgrims" settled in Plymouth, while Boston was settled by
The Massachusetts Bay Company. I had a college friend whose ancestors
arrived in Plymouth about 20 years after the Mayflower, and their
descendents stayed there until the 20th Century. He pointed out that after
the landing at Plymouth Rock and the supposedly First Thanksgiving (which we
all know was actually celebrated in Virginia) the Pilgrims disappeared from
history. Anything of any consequence that ever happened in Massachusetts
after 1620 happened in Boston.
--
John Varela
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when
they do it from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal
Joe Manfre
> The Mayflower "Pilgrims" settled in Plymouth, while Boston was settled by
> The Massachusetts Bay Company. I had a college friend whose ancestors
> arrived in Plymouth about 20 years after the Mayflower, and their
> descendents stayed there until the 20th Century. He pointed out that
> after the landing at Plymouth Rock and the supposedly First Thanksgiving
> (which we all know was actually celebrated in Virginia) the Pilgrims
> disappeared from history. Anything of any consequence that ever happened
> in Massachusetts after 1620 happened in Boston.
Nuh-uh. Basketball was invented in Springfield in 1891! So there!
I guess I showed you, huh?
JM
--
Joe Manfre, Hyattsville, Maryland.
Sol Taibi
In the context of American history, "noble birth" back
in the old country didn't count for much, but the descendants
of the Mayflower passengers formed their own aristocracy
with respect to later arrivals.
felix
>
> What exactly the Mayflower-blue blood means?
I don't think it means very much, since mayflowers are white in
colour.
> Were his ancestors of noble
> birth? I heard there was no noble man among the Mayflower passengers though.
Oo, I'm sure there were lots of noble types with high ideals. Just no
noblemen, though - prolly a good thing too cos they tend to gum up the
works and not get on with the hard work of setting up colonies.
Blue blood, the expression, comes from the Castilian Spanish, who were
proud to have white arms with blue veins, showing that they
i) never did a stroke of work
ii) hadn't mingled their genes with the moors, jews and assorted
riff-raff their country was happily being made interesting by.
felix
N.Mitchum
----
> The Mayflower-blue blood's flowing in his veins.
>
> What exactly the Mayflower-blue blood means?Were his ancestors of noble
> birth? I heard there was no noble man among the Mayflower passengers though.
Did you see it written this way? In a printed source? I would
have written "Mayflower blueblood" or "Mayflower blue blood."
People descended from the original colonists around Boston
consider themselves special, though they were little more than a
crowd of stiff-necked religious fanatics. Nothing much to be
proud of, but they've managed to present themselves as the
equivalent of local nobility.
----NM
Andy Averill
"Sol Taibi" <solomo...@computer.org> wrote in message
news:d3d33e5b.0109...@posting.google.com...
I don't think that was the main criterion. Social distinctions were more
likely based on what church you belonged to, or that old favorite, how much
money you had. It was only later that people began to be snobbish about
their ancestors having come over on the first boatload. It would be
especially ridiculous to be snobbish about it today, as there must be
literally millions of Americans who had an ancestor on the Mayflower.
My own ancestor William Averill came over in 1637 and settled in Ipswich.
He's not listed as a "freeman," which either meant he wasn't a member of the
Puritan congregation (possibly a Quaker) or just wasn't godly enough. His
daughter Sarah was hanged as a witch at Salem in 1692, having been denounced
by a neighbor with whom she'd been engaged in a lawsuit.
Many years later my Averill grandfather married into the Mayflower-descended
Reed family. I guess technically I should list my ethnic group on the
census form as "mixed boats."
--
Andy Averill
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Richard Fontana
> It would be
> especially ridiculous to be snobbish about it today, as there must be
> literally millions of Americans who had an ancestor on the Mayflower.
I'm not sure why that should be, but I'm willing to hear arguments.
Ben Zimmer
And volleyball was invented four years later in Holyoke.
--Ben
R J Valentine
It's kind of hard to avoid in New England (ask around), and a lot of
people have New England ancestors. Royal ancestry isn't that hard to come
by, either, though not generally through Mayflower passengers. They both
tend to be pretty well documented. Same with Revolutionary War ancestry.
Mostly it's a matter of finding out which aunt has done the hard work.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Richard Fontana
But specifically Mayflower passengers, with millions of descendants,
doesn't seem too likely.
Joe Manfre
> R J Valentine wrote:
>
>> Richard Fontana wrote:
>>
>> } On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Andy Averill wrote:
>> }> It would be
>> }> especially ridiculous to be snobbish about it today, as there must be
>> }> literally millions of Americans who had an ancestor on the Mayflower.
>> }
>> } I'm not sure why that should be, but I'm willing to hear arguments.
>>
>> It's kind of hard to avoid in New England (ask around), and a lot of
>> people have New England ancestors. Royal ancestry isn't that hard to
>> come by, either, though not generally through Mayflower passengers.
>> They both tend to be pretty well documented. Same with Revolutionary
>> War ancestry. Mostly it's a matter of finding out which aunt has done
>> the hard work.
>
> But specifically Mayflower passengers, with millions of descendants,
> doesn't seem too likely.
I agree. There were only 102 or 103 or 102 [1] passengers on the
Mayflower, plus maybe 25-30 crew members. And a lot of the passengers
were married couples and their children, which would seem to imply
fewer descendants today than if they'd all been single people who, after
arriving in America, each had kids with a person or persons who were
not Mayflower passengers. And of course there were a lot more than
a hundred and something people who have been royalty or who
participated in the American Revolution.
Then again, the Mayflower Society's homepage claims there are
tens of millions (or, as the page says, "tens-of-millions") of
Mayflower descendants now. I just can't see it, but then what do
I know, I'm not a Bostonian.
JM
[1] it started its voyage with 102 passengers; during the voyage,
one baby was born and one male passenger died
Andy Averill
"Joe Manfre" <man...@flash.net> wrote in message
news:Xns91286B0A2...@130.133.1.4...
Oh dear, I was afraid someone would make me do the math. Say there were 50
couples, and there have been 15 generations since 1620. If each descendant
had 2.5 children in each generation, there would now be 46,566,128.73
descendants. Of course this doesn't allow for interbreeding (undoubtedly
quite common within a couple of generations), infertility, or homosexuality,
but I think "tens of millions" is a pretty safe bet.
Ben Zimmer
Re interbreeding: our fearless leader Dubya is a Mayflower descendant on
four different lines-- three on his dad's side, one on his mom's side.
FDR was an eight-way descendant (though three of the lines trace to the
same person, Richard Warren). See:
http://members.aol.com/calebj/presidents.html
--Ben
Andy Averill
"Ben Zimmer" <bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:3BB2A7E4...@midway.uchicago.edu...
And he married his cousin. Is she the only famous woman whose maiden name
was the same as her married name?
Ben Zimmer
Albert Einstein married Elsa Einstein, first cousin on his mother's side
and second cousin on his father's side. Some other famous people who
married their first cousins are Charles Darwin, Edgar Allan Poe, and
Queen Victoria, but none of them shared names like the Einsteins or the
Roosevelts (who were fifth cousins once removed).
For first cousins to share the same name (unless they have more than one
line of consanguinity like the Einsteins), they have to be "patrilateral
parallel cousins", i.e., the man marries his father's brother's
daughter. But parallel cousin marriage is far less prevalent than "cross
cousin" marriage (man marries mother's brother's daughter or father's
sister's daughter):
http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/marriage/xcuz.html
http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/marriage/parallel.html
The Bible is full of patrilateral parallel cousins marrying (e.g., Isaac
married Rebekah, Jacob married Leah AND Rachel), but you'd be
hard-pressed to find cases of this in modern Western countries.
--Ben
Gary Williams
> "Franke" <fra...@seed.net.tw> wrote ...
> In the US the color of one's blood is assumed to change from a reddish tint
> to a shade of blue, once it has flowed through the family's veins for a
> certain period of time within the national borders.
This change of hue is vastly facilitated by the acquisition of green.
Gary Williams
Gary Williams
> Oh dear, I was afraid someone would make me do the math. Say there were 50
> couples, and there have been 15 generations since 1620. If each descendant
> had 2.5 children in each generation, there would now be 46,566,128.73
> descendants.
Right. I was briefly quite interested when my cousin established that
I could claim descent from Pepin the Short and Charles the Fat, until
I did the arithmetic and realized how many others could make the same
claim. How many others, that is, who also have good hereditary
excuses for not making it to the NBA.
Gary Williams
P&D Schultz
> I was briefly quite interested when my cousin established that
> I could claim descent from Pepin the Short and Charles the Fat, until
> I did the arithmetic and realized how many others could make the same
My father-in-law has "shown" that my wife is descended from Charlemagne.
When I found a 19th-century genealogy that "shows" that I myself am
descended from Charlemagne, I notified my two sons that their mother and
I were getting an anullment, and that they must immediately obtain
vasectomies.
They didn't even laugh at me. They went into the kitchen and made peanut
butter sandwiches.
\\P. Schultz
Don Aitken
<bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>Andy Averill wrote:
>>
>> "Ben Zimmer" <bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
>> news:3BB2A7E4...@midway.uchicago.edu...
>> >
>> >
>> > Andy Averill wrote:
>> > >
>> > Re interbreeding: our fearless leader Dubya is a Mayflower descendant on
>> > four different lines-- three on his dad's side, one on his mom's side.
>> > FDR was an eight-way descendant (though three of the lines trace to the
>> > same person, Richard Warren).
>>
>> And he married his cousin. Is she the only famous woman whose maiden name
>> was the same as her married name?
>
>Albert Einstein married Elsa Einstein, first cousin on his mother's side
>and second cousin on his father's side. Some other famous people who
>married their first cousins are Charles Darwin, Edgar Allan Poe, and
>Queen Victoria, but none of them shared names like the Einsteins or the
>Roosevelts (who were fifth cousins once removed).
>
Recent discussion on another ng suggested that most Americans deeply
disapprove of cousin marriages, particularly between first cousins -
indeed it was suggested that they have a superstitious and irrational
horror of them. Certainly some American posters seemed to regard the
assertion that Europeans marry their cousins as on a par with the one
about Koreans eating dogs. I was completely unaware of this cultural
difference. Have I got it right?
--
Don Aitken
Andy Averill
"P&D Schultz" <schult...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3BB3D465...@erols.com...
I'm no doctor, but even I know that peanut butter sandwiches don't cause
sterility.
Richard Fontana
> Recent discussion on another ng suggested that most Americans deeply
> disapprove of cousin marriages, particularly between first cousins -
> indeed it was suggested that they have a superstitious and irrational
> horror of them. Certainly some American posters seemed to regard the
> assertion that Europeans marry their cousins as on a par with the one
> about Koreans eating dogs. I was completely unaware of this cultural
> difference. Have I got it right?
Yes, provided the cousins are of sufficiently close degree, at least. I'm
certain that there are substantial pockets of the US where cousin
marriages are in fact considered normal and desirable, as you seem to
imply they are in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, but these, I
suspect, are either relatively isolated cultural backwaters (such as
Connecticut, much of whose interior native population does seem to me to
visibly show signs of inbreeding) or else highly segregated
quasi-aristocratic social elites (ditto).
There's a whole category of American humo(u)r centered around the idea
that rural people, particularly from such places as West Virginia, are
fond of cousin (if not sibling) marriage, and more generally that cousin
marriage is considered a grotesquely backward thing (see, e.g., that
_Simpsons_ episode about Shelbyville, or that _Seinfeld_ episode where
George gets the idea of having his parents believe that he's having a
relationship with his cousin so that they'll pay attention to him
again). I believe all this is related to more general cultural themes of
rural/urban, cosmopolitan/'heartland' conflict, and societal divisions
regarding the degree to which pluralism and diversity are celebrated or
feared.
Glancing at New York State and California law, it appears that marriage
between cousins of any degree is completely legit, and thus the
'superstition' as you call it is not reflected in law. (In the New York
case this might well be a concession to the Upstate population.)
Pat Durkin
"Richard Fontana" <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.010928...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu...
Well, even in highschool I heard of the horrors of cousin marriage: the
Jukes and the Kallikaks were the families involved in some sociological
study, apparently undertaken in the 1920's. They were supposedly an
Appalachian family. But my R.C. catechism also taught that first cousins
are within the first degree of kindred, and marriage between them can be
contracted only with dispensation ( I suppose by a bishop, if not the pope
himself).
The typical joke: What do they call a virgin in (any redneck country)?
Answer: a girl who can run faster than her male relatives.
>
> Glancing at New York State and California law, it appears that marriage
> between cousins of any degree is completely legit, and thus the
> 'superstition' as you call it is not reflected in law. (In the New York
> case this might well be a concession to the Upstate population.)
I haven't checked the law on this, but I would bet that in the smaller
Wisconsin towns there would be a lot of eyebrows raised when such a marriage
was contemplated. I have heard of some such contracts, with none of the
feared damage to the offspring.
Pat
Tony Cooper
>
> Recent discussion on another ng suggested that most Americans deeply
> disapprove of cousin marriages, particularly between first cousins -
> indeed it was suggested that they have a superstitious and irrational
> horror of them. Certainly some American posters seemed to regard the
> assertion that Europeans marry their cousins as on a par with the one
> about Koreans eating dogs. I was completely unaware of this cultural
> difference. Have I got it right?
>
I'm aware of it. I wouldn't consider it a superstition or
irrational horror. Old Wives Tale or Urban Legend or
whatever...we were always led to believe that marrying a
first cousin would result in inbred childen with terrible
birth defects. A cousin of my wife's married her first
cousin, and the family was all shocked. The parents of the
bride and groom had insisted that they consult a doctor
before marrying. Evidently, it was not a problem because
they went ahead with the marriage. I don't know if they
ended up having children or not.
There is the old joke about the Hatfield boy marrying the
McCoy girl. The morning after the honeymoon night, the
Hatfield boy came back alone from the mountain shack where
they'd spent the night.
When asked where his new wife was, he replied "I had to
shoot her. She were a virgin."
When asked why being a virgin was a bad thing, he drawled "I
figgered if she warn't good enough for the McCoy's, she
warn't nowhere near good enough for a Hatfield."
**************************************************************
If you are not familiar with the Hatfields and the McCoys,
see:
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~dmcco01/McCoy/LIFE/
or a longer version at:
Matti Lamprhey
>
> I'm no doctor, but even I know that peanut butter sandwiches don't cause
> sterility.
No issue on that one, Andy.
Matti
Matthew M. Huntbach
> Right. I was briefly quite interested when my cousin established that
> I could claim descent from Pepin the Short and Charles the Fat, until
> I did the arithmetic and realized how many others could make the same
> claim.
Yes, almost anyone of western European descent could do so. The younger
children of royalty married into the aristocracy, the younger children
of the aristocracy married into the gentry, the younger children of the
gentry married into the peasantry. Tracing your descent involves working
out the process in reverse. Once you find an ancestor who was a minor
landowner the process is easy, because you are then amongst people who
had records kept.
Matthew Huntbach
Matthew M. Huntbach
> Yes, provided the cousins are of sufficiently close degree, at least. I'm
> certain that there are substantial pockets of the US where cousin
> marriages are in fact considered normal and desirable, as you seem to
> imply they are in the UK and elsewhere in Europe,
Cousin marriages are probably not considered normal, and are certainly
not considered as desirable in the UK.
Matthew Huntbach
Jacqui
> Richard Fontana wrote:
>
> > Yes, provided the cousins are of sufficiently close degree, at least.
I'm
> > certain that there are substantial pockets of the US where cousin
> > marriages are in fact considered normal and desirable, as you seem to
> > imply they are in the UK and elsewhere in Europe,
>
> Cousin marriages are probably not considered normal, and are certainly
> not considered as desirable in the UK.
But it's perfectly legal. And it was considered desirable in the past, among
people of certain standing, not least because fathers of daughters might
sooner see entailed lands stay in the immediate family; if a male cousin
will inherit then he might as well marry a daughter, allowing her widowed
mother (and any other children) to live in the Dower House. See 'Sense and
Sensibility' for an illustration of what happens when nasty mean people
inherit land and houses and turf out the existing inhabitants (although in
that case it was the elder half-brother who inherited, and I hope Mr
Dashwood would not have encouraged THAT marriage). <g>
I don't know when the laws regarding cousin (and other relatives)
intermarriage were formalised, but AFAIK it's never been illegal. Marrying
deceased husband's brother is a WW1 amendment; I don't think any other major
changes have been made in the last 150 years though.
Jac
John Varela
> Well, even in highschool I heard of the horrors of cousin marriage: the
> Jukes and the Kallikaks were the families involved in some sociological
> study, apparently undertaken in the 1920's. They were supposedly an
> Appalachian family.
Nope. They were from the New Jersey Pine Barrens. "Pineys" are New
Jersey's flatland hillbillies.
--
John Varela
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when
they do it from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal
R J Valentine
} But my R.C. catechism also taught that first cousins
} are within the first degree of kindred, and marriage between them can be
} contracted only with dispensation ( I suppose by a bishop, if not the pope
} himself).
I think it's third cousins that need a dispensation and fourth cousins
that don't. (The pope doesn't usually get involved unless it's cousins of
the royal or bishop persuasion that want to marry each other.) But I
didn't even know the last names (much less the first names) of my Detroit
second cousins until recently, so it's a hard thing to enforce unless both
the betrothed have done their four-generation charts.
On the other hand, thanks to the good folks in Salt Lake City, I've looked
into the baptismal and marriage records of my ancestral village of 400 in
northwestern Lorraine (the part that was part of Alsace-Lorraine for a
while), and there were surprisingly few marriages of even fourth cousins.
And those probably don't share even a single chromosome in common, if you
ignore that recombination dance I hear about.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
"Platt schwätzen és gésond for't Herz."
Truly Donovan
<nospa...@lisco.com> wrote:
>
>"P&D Schultz" <schult...@erols.com> wrote in message
>> They didn't even laugh at me. They went into the kitchen and made peanut
>> butter sandwiches.
>
>I'm no doctor, but even I know that peanut butter sandwiches don't cause
>sterility.
>
That depends on what you do with them.
--
Truly Donovan
http://www.trulydonovan.com
Pat Durkin
"John Varela" <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:NKQS2gVdCOMx-p...@dialup-63.215.159.189.Dial1.Washington1.L
evel3.net...
> On Fri, 28 Sep 2001 06:09:08, "Pat Durkin" <durk...@nothome.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, even in highschool I heard of the horrors of cousin marriage: the
> > Jukes and the Kallikaks were the families involved in some sociological
> > study, apparently undertaken in the 1920's. They were supposedly an
> > Appalachian family.
>
> Nope. They were from the New Jersey Pine Barrens. "Pineys" are New
> Jersey's flatland hillbillies.
>
> --
> John Varela
both families on the internet. Neither was Appalachian. One family was
offspring of a Quaker: both legitimate and illegitimate. Of course the
legitimate family (sorry, don't remember if they were the Jukes or the
Kallikaks) was intelligent , constructive, hard-working, etc, while the
offspring of the illegitimate pairing involved a lot of crime, poverty,
mental illness, and the like. I think that family was from New York State.
One of the sources on the search page referred to both studies as
"spurious", so apparently the research techniques would not pass muster in
today's standards.
Old Timer
Pat Durkin wrote:
> "One of the sources on the search page referred to both studies as
> "spurious", so apparently the research techniques would not pass muster in
> today's standards.
Right--that's been known for 50 years. But as I recall, it was not that the
research techniques were poor, but that the whole thing was a fake.
Aaron Davies
> Glancing at New York State and California law, it appears that marriage
> between cousins of any degree is completely legit, and thus the
> 'superstition' as you call it is not reflected in law. (In the New York
> case this might well be a concession to the Upstate population.)
Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
--
__ __
/ ) / )
/--/ __. __ ______ / / __. , __o _ _
/ (_(_/|_/ (_(_) / <_ /__/_(_/|_\/ <__</_/_)_
Richard Fontana
> "Platt schwätzen és gésond for't Herz."
"We're Number 2, so we try harder"?
R J Valentine
} On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, R J Valentine wrote:
}
}> "Platt schw?tzen ?s g?sond for't Herz."
}
} "We're Number 2, so we try harder"?
Roughly, yeah. Rey'll be along any minute to crack wise.
Truly Donovan
aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
little miffed.
Don Aitken
<tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
>aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
>
>>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
>>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
>
>Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
>sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
>married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
>little miffed.
>
I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
I believe the answer is "yes", perhaps surprisingly, since the
relationship is as close genetically as that between brother and
sister. The child of such a marriage has only one set of grandparents.
--
Don Aitken
Skitt
"Don Aitken" <don-a...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:3bb8f40d...@news.freeuk.net...
> On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:32:00 -0600, Truly Donovan
> <tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
> >aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
> >
> >>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> >>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
> >
> >Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
> >sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
> >married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
> >little miffed.
> >
> I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
> in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
> the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
It wasn't to me. I, much to my disadvantage at times, tend to accept what
someone writes or says as meaning what they intended to mean. That sentence
stumped me, but then, people say things here on occasion that do not make
any sense, and I accept that without comment -- well, I do that some of the
time. I saw Truly's comment before I had decided to make my own, so ...
> I believe the answer is "yes", perhaps surprisingly, since the
> relationship is as close genetically as that between brother and
> sister. The child of such a marriage has only one set of grandparents.
Unfortunately, with the qualifying criteria I just stated above, I have to
go with Truly's conclusion, although even though even in Utah it now appears
to be on the wrong side of the law. Not that I would like to marry my
wife's sister -- not while my wife is within striking distance.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
David McMurray
> On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:32:00 -0600, Truly Donovan
> <tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
> >aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
> >
> >>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> >>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
> >
> >Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
> >sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
> >married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
> >little miffed.
> >
> I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
> in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
> the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
Tiffany and Jerome may be "double cousins" in such a circumstance, but
she isn't his sister-in-law, no matter how you abbreviate it.
> I believe the answer is "yes", perhaps surprisingly, since the
> relationship is as close genetically as that between brother and
> sister. The child of such a marriage has only one set of grandparents.
Unless the parents are siblings, it's a set with four members, as are
most such. Perhaps you mean "only one set of great-grandparents".
--
David
Donna Richoux
> Don Aitken <don-a...@freeuk.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:32:00 -0600, Truly Donovan
> > <tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> >
> > >On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
> > >aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
> > >
> > >>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> > >>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
> > >
> > >Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
> > >sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
> > >married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
> > >little miffed.
> > >
> > I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
> > in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
> > the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
>
> Tiffany and Jerome may be "double cousins" in such a circumstance, but
> she isn't his sister-in-law, no matter how you abbreviate it.
Aaron must have been thinking of the "extended" sister-in-law idea, the
basic Jane Austen relationship -- if your sister is married and her
husband has a brother, is that person your "brother-in-law"? In Austen's
day, I think they even called that person your "brother" for the sake of
simplicity. Yet they didn't take it very literally, because that
acquaintance frequently led to marriage.
It shows up in old family trees, of sisters and brothers of one family
marrying brothers and sisters in another family. Well, if was a long
walk from one pioneer clearing to another, your choice was limited.
>
> > I believe the answer is "yes", perhaps surprisingly, since the
> > relationship is as close genetically as that between brother and
> > sister. The child of such a marriage has only one set of grandparents.
>
> Unless the parents are siblings, it's a set with four members, as are
> most such. Perhaps you mean "only one set of great-grandparents".
A set which has the normal number of great-grandparents, namely eight.
This line of reasoning is not working. The noteworthy fact has to be
something about the cousins, not a single child. Double first cousins
have all four grandparents in common, instead of the usual two. Earlier
generations of ancestors would also be identical.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
Aaron Davies
> David McMurray <ik0...@kingston.net> wrote:
>
> > Don Aitken <don-a...@freeuk.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:32:00 -0600, Truly Donovan
> > > <tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > >On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
> > > >aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> > > >>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
> > > >
> > > >Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
> > > >sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
> > > >married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
> > > >little miffed.
> > > >
> > > I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
> > > in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
> > > the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
> >
> > Tiffany and Jerome may be "double cousins" in such a circumstance, but
> > she isn't his sister-in-law, no matter how you abbreviate it.
>
> Aaron must have been thinking of the "extended" sister-in-law idea, the
> basic Jane Austen relationship -- if your sister is married and her
> husband has a brother, is that person your "brother-in-law"? In Austen's
> day, I think they even called that person your "brother" for the sake of
> simplicity. Yet they didn't take it very literally, because that
> acquaintance frequently led to marriage.
Yes, that's right. Let's see if I can diagram this.
G1=====G2 G3=====G4
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
---------------- ----------------
| | | |
| D11===S21 |
| | |
S11================|================D21
| |
| |
| |
D12=====S22
|
|
S
D's and S's are sons and daughters, G's are (great-)grandparents. If S11
marries D21 and has a daughter D12 who marries her double-cousin S22,
the son of D11 and S21, their son S has only four great-grandparents.
P&D Schultz
I have an ancestor the parents of whom each was the offspring of the
same brothers and the same sisters. That is, two brothers married two
sisters, and their children married one another and produced the
ancestor in question. The parents of this ancestor were double first
cousins. The ancestor had two parents, four grandparents, and four
great-grandparents.
\\P. Schultz
Truly Donovan
Aitken) wrote:
>On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:32:00 -0600, Truly Donovan
><tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
>>aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
>>
>>>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
>>>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
>>
>>Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
>>sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
>>married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
>>little miffed.
>>
>I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
>in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
>the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
None of that has the guy marrying his sister-in-law. If
that's what you call clarity, have at it.
Tony Cooper
>
> I have an ancestor the parents of whom each was the offspring of the
> same brothers and the same sisters. That is, two brothers married two
> sisters, and their children married one another and produced the
> ancestor in question. The parents of this ancestor were double first
> cousins. The ancestor had two parents, four grandparents, and four
> great-grandparents.
I nominate this for "Convoluted Paragraph of the Month".
I have been staring at the line "I have an ancestor the
parents of whom each..." for minutes. Now, I know what he
means, but....
Then, there's "The ancestor had two parents, four
grandparents, and four
great-grandparents." Somehow, I've lost - or is it P or is
it D has lost - four great-grandparents. Perhaps they are
there in that paragraph, but I'm getting dizzy and must move
on to the next post.
Aaron Davies
> On Tue, 02 Oct 2001 00:22:08 GMT, don-a...@freeuk.com (Don
> Aitken) wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:32:00 -0600, Truly Donovan
> ><tru...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> >
> >>On Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400,
> >>aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com (Aaron Davies) wrote:
> >>
> >>>Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> >>>where A guy marries his sister-in-law.
> >>
> >>Only in parts of Utah. It's hard for a guy to have a
> >>sister-in-law without one or the other of them being
> >>married, and there's a risk that the spouse might be a
> >>little miffed.
> >>
> >I thought the way Aaron put it, although abbreviated, was clear enough
> >in context. If you want it spelled out, he meant "Can a person marry
> >the child of his mother's brother and his father's sister?"
>
> None of that has the guy marrying his sister-in-law. If
> that's what you call clarity, have at it.
Look, I left out an intermediate step, OK? Try this instead:
Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
the kids of a guy and his sister-in-law and his brother and his spouse.
That's what I'd probably have written instead. Is it any better?
Ben Zimmer
If it helps to ease the confusion, P&D's ancestor is the product of what
anthropologists call "bilateral cross cousin marriage": when a man
marries a woman who is both his mother's brother's daughter
(matrilateral cross cousin) and his father's sister's daughter
(patrilateral cross cousin). There are some societies in the world
(like the Yanomamo of the Amazon) where such marriage is preferred.
See:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/marriage/bixcuz.html
--Ben
David McMurray
> P&D Schultz wrote:
> >
> > I have an ancestor the parents of whom each was the offspring of the
> > same brothers and the same sisters. That is, two brothers married two
> > sisters, and their children married one another and produced the
> > ancestor in question. The parents of this ancestor were double first
> > cousins. The ancestor had two parents, four grandparents, and four
> > great-grandparents.
[...]
> Then, there's "The ancestor had two parents, four
> grandparents, and four
> great-grandparents." Somehow, I've lost - or is it P or is
> it D has lost - four great-grandparents. Perhaps they are
> there in that paragraph, but I'm getting dizzy and must move
> on to the next post.
The grandfathers are brothers and their parents are great-grandparents.
The grandmothers are sisters and their parents are great-grandparents.
That's a total of four great-grandparents.
I suppose you could think of them as eight great-grandparents, but they
are only four distinct persons, as I suggested and P. made explicit.
--
David
Donna Richoux
Oh, if we are back to talking about double first cousins who *marry*
each other and what about their *children*, then I'm with you. I think
all the generations have been rather mixed up in this discussion,
starting with the "sister-in-law" comment.
Donna Richoux
>
> Look, I left out an intermediate step, OK? Try this instead:
>
> Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> the kids of a guy and his sister-in-law and his brother and his spouse.
>
> That's what I'd probably have written instead. Is it any better?
No. One big problem is those four people you name are not the "double
cousins" you just referred to -- they appear to be the parents.
But, to whom does "his spouse" refer? The spouse of the guy or the
spouse of his brother? Neither way works.
You still seem to be trying to use "sister-in-law" in the extended Jane
Austen sense -- one's sibling's spouse's sister. It is not the ordinary
21st century use.
Try saying that two brothers marry two sisters -- it comes out the same
and you don't get the ambiguity.
*Then* you have to say each pair has a *child* (called "double first
cousins") and suppose those cousins want to marry *each other*. You left
out this step before, too.
Then you, or somebody, went on before to talk about the *children of
such a union*, yet another generation.
--
Whew -- Donna Richoux
a1a5...@sprint.ca
<bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>If it helps to ease the confusion, P&D's ancestor is the product of what
>anthropologists call "bilateral cross cousin marriage": when a man
>marries a woman who is both his mother's brother's daughter
>(matrilateral cross cousin) and his father's sister's daughter
>(patrilateral cross cousin). There are some societies in the world
>(like the Yanomamo of the Amazon) where such marriage is preferred.
>See:
>
>http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/marriage/bixcuz.html
>
>--Ben
Aha! The Yanomamo eh? P_&_D, wotwot!
P&D Schultz
> <...> Somehow, I've lost - or is it P or is
> it D has lost - four great-grandparents. <...>
Nobody lost them. They didn't exist. That was the whole point.
\\P. Schultz
Aaron Davies
> Aaron Davies <aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com> wrote:
> >
> > Look, I left out an intermediate step, OK? Try this instead:
> >
> > Hmm. I wonder if double cousins are legally allowed to marry? You know,
> > the kids of a guy and his sister-in-law and his brother and his spouse.
> >
> > That's what I'd probably have written instead. Is it any better?
>
> No. One big problem is those four people you name are not the "double
> cousins" you just referred to -- they appear to be the parents.
Rights--hence "the kids".
> But, to whom does "his spouse" refer? The spouse of the guy or the
> spouse of his brother? Neither way works.
>
> You still seem to be trying to use "sister-in-law" in the extended Jane
> Austen sense -- one's sibling's spouse's sister. It is not the ordinary
> 21st century use.
>
> Try saying that two brothers marry two sisters -- it comes out the same
> and you don't get the ambiguity.
No it doesn't, then everyone thinks I'm talking about incest.