The Editor: Genealogy and Eugenics 



381 



Before 1700, less than 2% of the wives solution may be, it still lies hidden in 



had only one child each; nowadays the pedigrees which the genealogist will 



percentage is about 20. The percentage make, or is already making. 

 of wives, in his records, who are abso- 

 lutely childless, has increased as follows: D^'T^ "N ALL TRAITS WANTED 



1750-1799 1.88 B^t this list might grow interminably : 



1800-1849 4.07 for properly kept genealogical records 



1850-1?.69 5.91 will furnish material, without further 



^^^'""^^'^ ^-^^ trouble, for attacking very nearly all 



He finds, on analysis of the most recent the problems in human heredity that 



material, that the New England wives of are conceivable. The compiler of family 



the present day, representing the old histories need only include every phys- 



colonial stock, have an average of 1.92 ical or mental trait possible, bearing in 



Hving children each, while the foreign- mind that the genetist will ask two 



born mothers in the same districts questions about it : 

 have 3.01. We are accustomed to point Is this characteristic inherited? 



with pity at France as a nation commit- If so, how? 



ting race suicide, with more deaths than Nor must it be forgotten that we are 

 births; as a fact, the old American stock often as much interested in knowing 

 in New England is dying out more that a given character is not inherited 

 rapidly, through race suicide, than is the under certain conditions, as that it is. 

 population of France. Unless a change It is highly desirable that genealogists 

 takes place, the stock which has should acquire the habit of stating the 

 furnished most of the genealogies and a traits of their subjects in quantitative 

 large part of the great men and women terms. We are too often told that a 

 of America is doomed to perish. certain amount is "much;" what we 

 The inheritance of the tendency to want to know is how much. Thus, 

 produce twins is an interesting trait, not instead of saying that an individual 

 without practical as well as theoretical had fairly good health, tell exactly 

 importance, which could probably be what diseases he had during his life- 

 solved were a sufficient number of well- time ; instead of remarking that he was 

 kept family trees made available for a good mathematician, tell us some 

 study. It is known that twinning is anecdote or fact that will allow us to 

 largely a matter of heredity, although judge the extent of his abihty in this 

 the exact manner in which the tendency line. Did he keep record of his bank 

 is inherited is still obscure. A good ex- balance in his head instead of on paper? 

 ample of the danger of hasty generaliza- Was he fond of mathematical puzzles? 

 tion is furnished by the announcement Did he revel in statistics? Was the 

 made by some enthusiastic investigator study of calculus a recreation to him? 

 a few years ago^' that he had found a Did he solve to his own satisfaction the 

 number of cases which made it evident problem of squaring the circle? Such 

 to him that the tendency to twinning things probably will appear trifles to 

 was due to the father rather than the the genealogist, but to the eugenist 

 mother. As ordinary twins are due to they are precious. 



the production of two ova instead of Aside from biology, or that phase of 



one, and as the production of ova can it which we call eugenics, genealogy may 



hardly be denied to be a function of also serve medicine, jurisprudence, soci- 



the mother rather than the father, the ology, statistics, and various other 



claim is absurd. Yet it is possible sciences as well as the ones which it now 



that a tendency to twinning might be serves. But in most cases, such service 



sex-linked and transmitted through a will have a eugenic aspect. The alHance 



father to his daughters, as has recently between eugenics and genealogy . is 



been asserted to be the case with high so logical that it cannot be put off much 



egg production in hens. Whatever the longer. 



'2 Cited by Weinberg, W. Methode der Vererbungsforschung beim Menschen. Berliner Klin- 

 ische Wochenschrift Vol. 49, 1912; No. 14, pp. 646-649 (April 1) and No. 15, pp. 697-701 (April 8). 



