EXTINCTION OF FAMILY NAMES 



Algebraical Computation Shows That if World Lasted an Infinite Length of Time, 

 All Inhabitants Would Have Same Surname Investigation of German Vil- 

 lagers Shows That Process of Extinction, Although Certain, is Slow. 



Compiled by the Editor. 



THAT every family name must 

 die out sooner or later, was sug- 

 gested by Alphonse de Candollc 

 many years ago. Sir Francis 

 Galton caught up the suggestion and 

 proved its truth by mathematical com- 

 putation. A German investigator has 

 lately analyzed the data from 1400 

 marriages, in order to find out exactly 

 in what way the extinction takes place, 

 and reaches the conclusion that the 

 probable extinction of any family can 

 be foreseen one or two generations 

 before the line actually runs out, and 

 that as a general rule, when the decline 

 has set in, nothing can stop it. 



"In the accurate information and 

 sensible statements of Bcnoiston de 

 Chateauneuf, Galton and other statis- 

 ticians," said de Candolle in his Histoire 

 des Sciences et des Savants (1873), "I 

 have not noticed the very important 

 conclusion which they ought to have 

 made, on the inevitable extinction of 

 family names. Obviously all names 

 must finally disappear. A mathema- 

 tician could calculate how the reduction 

 in the number of names and titles takes 

 place, according to the probability of 

 wholly female or wholly male births, or 

 births of both sexes, and according to 

 the probability of the absence of births 

 with any given couple." 



Galton 's own reflections on the sub- 

 ject were as follows' : 



IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM. 



"The decay of ^ the families of men 

 who occupied conspicuous positions in 

 past times has been a subject of frequent 

 remark, and has given rise to various 

 conjectures. It is not only the families 

 of men of genius or {hose of the 



'Galton, Francis.'Natural InlurilaiKv, \k 241. 

 212 



aristocracy who tend to perish, but it 

 is those of all with whom history deals, 

 in any way, even such men as the 

 biirgesses of towns, concerning whom 

 Mr. Doubleday has inquired and writ- 

 ten. The instances are very nimicrous 

 in which surnames that were once com- 

 mon have since become scarce or have 

 wholly disappeared. The tendency is 

 universal, and in explanation of it, the 

 conclusion has been hastily drawn that 

 a rise in physical comfort and intel- 

 lectual capacity is necessarily accom- 

 panied by diminution in 'fertility' — 

 using that phrase in its widest sense and 

 reckoning abstinence from marriage as 

 one cause of sterility. If that con- 

 clusion be true, our population is chiefly 

 maintained by the 'proletariat,' and 

 thus a large element of degradation is 

 inseparably connected with those other 

 elements which tend to ameliorate the 

 race. On the other hand, M. Alphonse 

 de Candolle has directed attention to 

 the fact that, by the ordinary law of 

 chances, a large proportion of families 

 are continually dying out, and it evi- 

 dently follows that, until we know 

 what that proportion is, we cannot 

 estimate whether any observed diminu- 

 tion of surnames among the families 

 whose histories we can trace, is or is not 

 a sign of their diminished 'fertiHty.' 

 * * * Although I have not hitherto 

 ]n;blished anything on the matter, I 

 took consideral)le ])ains some \-ears ago 

 to obtain numerical results in respect to 

 this very problem." 



A MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION. 



Galton then quotes the solution of the 

 problem worked out for him b>' Rev. 

 H. W. Watson, supposing N to rejjrc- 



Lfmdon, ISW. 



