Stathti'cal Invent if /at knu ^ 363 



n. TTIE RECORD OF FAMILY FACriT/ES AND THE LIFE HISTORY ALBUM 



In the advertisement of the prize competition Galton suggested that 

 information should Ixi collected with regard to the child, its parent«, its 

 gniiidpiirentH and great-grandparents, Numlx'rs I to 15 of his scale of relation- 

 ship, an«l tus far as possible of all the collaterals of these, i.e. memiiers of the 

 same sil)Klii|i.s as these, or alxmt 70 to 90 individuals. Cousins Galton 

 omitted, although we now know that, both on Mendelian theory and by actual 

 oljservation, they exhibit as much of the constitution of the common stirp as 

 aunts, uncles or grandparents and more than great-grandparents'. The prizes 

 were to be given to those who filled in the blank spaces of the Jtecord of 

 Family Faculties most completely and perspicuously. The Record was 

 published l)y Macinillans in 1884 and has been long out of print. A new 

 and somewhat modified edition of it is certainly needed. It records, lor the 

 family of an individual — his stirp — what the Life- History Album of the same 

 year does more copiously for tne individual himself. In other words, the 

 Record of Family Facidties could be extracted from the separate Life- His- 

 tory Albums of its units, but the inverse process is not pcssible. The one 

 gives — except for the medical section — a brief account of the adult char.ac- 

 teristics of each unit of the stirp, the other traces the unit through all phases 

 of growth. 



In the Record the following questions are a.sked: (l) Date of Birth; 

 (*J) Occupation, Birthplace, Residences; (3) Age at Marriage of individual, 

 number of sons and daughters alive and their ages, and the same for those 

 deceased with age at de.'ith ; (4) Age at Marriage of spouse ; (5) Mode of 

 life so far as afi'ecting growth or health; (6) Was early life laborious? why 

 and how? (7) Adult height, adult colour of hair — colour of eyes; (8) General 

 apjiearance; (D) Bodily strength and energy, if nuich above or below the 

 average ; ( 1 0) Keenness or imperfection of sight and other sen.ses ; ( 1 1 ) Mental 

 powers and energy, if above or below the average; (12) Character and tem- 

 perament; (13) Favourite pursuits and interests, artistic aptitudes. Then 

 comes the medical history: (14) Minor ailments to which there was special 

 liability (a) in youth, (/>) in middle age; (15) Graver illnesses, (a) in youth, 

 (6) in middle age; (16) Cause and date of death, and age at death. There 

 are pages for male and female relatives of whom little is known but the age 

 at and cause of death. There are pages for summaries of the anthropometric 

 and medical characteristics of the stirp, and two Appendices to be devoted 

 respectively to the Biological History of the Father's and of the Mother's 

 Family. By ' biological history' Galton undei-stood the constitutional history 

 and hereditary peculiarities of mind and body on either father or mother's 

 side. A third appendix deals with an examination of the way in which 

 the faculties of the father and mother are blended or otherwise combined 

 in the child. 



' This result of theory and observation always troubled Galton, but I do not think there is 

 any doubt of its accuracy. 



46— a 



