Hello: It was interesting to note that an adopted brother and adopted sister (knowingly) unrelated by blood, having the same adoptive parents, can marry, which makes sense. If one takes a county like Lincolnshire in England, where a core of people have lived for many hundreds of years, relatively undisturbed as such, all over in these small farming towns etc., a large portion of these people are all well related. Literally cousins marrying cousins of one degree or another, at least going down to the 3-4 generations, and then for some branches down the same again. === Leviticus 18 NIV: Unlawful Relations: No close relative. Your mother/sister/(Half). Your father’s: wife/mother’s sister/brother's wife (aunt). Your son’s: wife/dg/dg’s dg. Your brother’s wife. With both a woman and her dg, or her son’s or dg’s dg. Your wife’s sister (while your wife is living). === 1560 List [For male]: Essentially: No grandmother/aunt/(Mother/in-Law/Step)/(sister/in-Law/Step)/Dg. No Dg's Dg/Dg's Son's Wife/Wife's Dg/Wife's (Brother's or Sister's) or (Son’s or Dg's) Dg. No Son's: Dg/Wife/Son's Wife. No Brother's: Dg/Wife/Son's Wife. No Sister's: Dg/Son's Wife. === *So the one rule is whether up or down, you can’t marry an aunt/uncle/nephew/niece/grandparent/grandchild/or any of their spouses. Bart. -----Original Message-----

This taboo derives from the ancient Jewish laws and there are lots of references to such matters in the Pentateuch. It is also found in tribal societies living in small communities; sometimes they preferred to marry within the tribe (e.g. instances in the Bible of going back to the country of origin to find brides for the sons), but sometimes it is seen as being better to bring in foreign blood, as later in the time of David and the Kings. It is all about the the knowledge, from experience, that pastoral people have of the importance of cross-breeding and the consequent suspicion of in-breeding: that the latter tends to weaken the stock in various ways. The more ridiculous side of the US Churches leans rather more to the Old Testament than to the New; the same side that believe that the whole of Creation took place in 4004 BC. Anyone who has attended an old-style Southern Baptist Church will recognise the syndrome right away. Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com On 07/04/2015, at 10:33 PM, Irene de Villiers via wrote: > > > On Apr 6, 2015, at 11:27 PM, Pat Brown via wrote: > >> I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in South >> Africa. > > Nor me, but it seems it was socially taboo even for distant cousins. > For example, Cecil John Rhodes was in love with Janey Rhodes my g reat hrandmother - and they met for frequent vacatosn and funl but never married "because they were cousins". But they are really distant cousins vie great grandfathers being brothers ir soe such - nothing close at all. > > But if you want to know who is behind the times even in THIS century, it is the Yanks. > Where I now live in WA state it is illegal for first cousins to marry and in Texas it is not only illegal but is a criminal offense! IN Texas the ban was only made in 2005. Talk about crazy. > Before the USA civil war there was no ban. It has been added a few states at a time since t hen by ridiculous claims written by fools but believed despite real papers to the contrary. Americans can be such terrible sheeple I am afraid. > Here's a map of the stupidity, the dark blueshaded areas see sense, not the rest: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_state > > By the way the originator of genetics and evolution was Darwin, and he and his wife were first cousins:-) > Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins. > > In Europe only Austria Hungary and Spain banned cousin marriage in 19th century. > But the Christian church made it taboo in some places and that has to be where it originates in South Africa as a taboo. > Heres a world map of current first cousin restrictions, again dark blue is marriage allowed, red not, marroon criminal. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#/media/File:CousinMarriageWorld.svg > > Namaste, > Irene > > -- > Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. > P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. > www.Furryboots.info > (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) > "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

I have found this discussion most interesting because we had a club-foot in our family: my brother, born in Cape Town in March 1939. Seeing this was before the War (and my mother was likewise born before WW1, in 1911), and it was her second pregnancy (I was born in September 1936, and my other two brothers in September 1942 in Cape Town and September 1946 in Mutare), none of us with any real nutritional deficiencies such as one might have found in the most affected countries in both wars, this must just have been some awkwardness in the boy's position. He was a very large baby and the birth was difficult and prolonged for that reason, but it doesn't seem likely to be the cause. My brother was fitted with corrective boots, which was probably painful for him (though he didn't complain as far as I can remember -- I can just remember him still wearing them, but he was out of them by the time my father returned from the War in late 1945), but was certainly painful for my mother, as he was a lively baby and kicked vigorously when laid on his back, to the great discomfort of her elbows! She later became somewhat arthritic in her later years, not least in her elbows, but lived to 91 without ever losing her vigour, though the last time I saw her, when I went over to SA for her 90th birthday, she didn't know who I was: a bit of a shock though I had been forewarned. My own kids had no such problems, so my wife's elbows are just fine into her late 70s, though mine are a bit wonky, along with much of the rest of me, but for quite other reasons. In passing, my brother-in-law used to do some work at the Orphanage close to the place in Mowbray, but that was much later, when it was for all races. Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com On 06/04/2015, at 8:14 PM, Irene de Villiers via wrote: > > > On Apr 4, 2015, at 11:07 PM, rodg via wrote: > >> As far as I understand polio is an infection and club feet is an heredity condition. >> Which did young Mavis have? > > Dear Rod, > Polio is indeed a viral infection. > > But club foot is most often a condition of a crowded uterus. If the mother is malnourished or has a toxic diet or takes in toxins (eg smoking) or has a nutritional deficiency, the uterus is poorly fed and the amn iotic sac tends to be too small also (difficult to make fluid with malnutrition), the feet can become mispositioned in the womb due to crowding and the individual is born with a foot facing the wrong way called "clubfoot" though it is not a good description. If repaired before age two, it is a simple operation as there has been no significant pressure on the bones of the feet, in the wrong direction. > Later it becomes major surgery as bones succumb to pressure and walking on a foot in the wrong position aggravates the situation and forces incorrect bone growth. Sadly the need to help the foot u nwind to the correct position was not understood till about mic-20th century. > > The same issues occur more frequently in animals with multiple births but there too it is a matter of whether the uterus could expand easily or was undernourished or incorrectly nourished and failed to expand well and provide a suitable amniotic volume and cramped the infants. In kittens for example club feet are quite common in a large litter, but they often can come right in a matter of weeks with very little help. > > The homeopathic remedy caullophyllum 30C, given to the mother of any species during pregnancy, a few times like monthly for 6 months in humans, weekly for 6 weeks in cats, but not late in pregnancy will ensure flexibility and womb muscle strength, helping infants to stretch thanks to the excellent muscle tone and the uterus to expel the infant easily and painlessly at birth. Those who knew homeopathy (it has been around over 200 yrs) before the medical associations feared the competition and shut it down shortly after the 1918 flu epidemic (in which only 2% of people on homeopathy died but 98% of those using aspirin died), would not have seen club foot. > > Officially most doctors claim not to know why clubfoot happens in that they do not see or admit the correlation with nutritional factors, but they do recognize the association with toxic factors (go figure!). As a cat breeder and geneticist, I know this is the cause in cats and I agree with my friend who runs a childrens orthopedic hospital (Mowbray Cottage Hospital in Cape Town, which used to be for colored children only, where incidence was high) that nutrition is the single greatest predictive factor. She ran a program to turn that around and also to ensure early surgery for victims, with corporate donations, which was very successful in the 80s and 90s. I do not know if it is still going. I moved to USA in early 1998. > > To know whethere someone has club foot or polio, would need photos or a description. The difference is clear visually. Polio involves atrrophied limbs, not just a foot pointing the wrong way. > > Namaste, > Irene > -- > Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. > P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. > www.Furryboots.info > (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) > "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

On 7 Apr 2015 at 5:33, Irene de Villiers via wrote: > But if you want to know who is behind the times even in THIS century, it is > the Yanks. Where I now live in WA state it is illegal for first cousins to > marry and in Texas it is not only illegal but is a criminal offense! IN Texas > the ban was only made in 2005. Talk about crazy. Before the USA civil war > there was no ban. It has been added a few states at a time since t hen by > ridiculous claims written by fools but believed despite real papers to the > contrary. Americans can be such terrible sheeple I am afraid. Here's a map of > the stupidity, the dark blueshaded areas see sense, not the rest: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_stat > e > > By the way the originator of genetics and evolution was Darwin, and he and > his wife were first cousins:-) Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first > cousins. And ir was partly as a result of Darwin's ideas that the eugenics movement arose, which led to the banning on cousin marriage in the USA that you mention. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States But it is not entirely baseless. Some years ago there was a researcher, Dr Marie Torrington, who was doing research into genetic diseases in South Africa, such as porphyria, and mapping them to the family histories of the sufferers (I helped her to set up some genealogy software to track it). There were some small communities in the Wesrtern Cape where there had been a lot of intermarriage, and some diseases were more prevalent there. And in our own family history, some branches have got very much intermarried, and the more closely related they were, the shorter was the lifespan. I haven't made a detailed study to correlate it exactly, but it is an observation. An occasional cousin marriage should not make much difference, but when it happens generation after generation, it can. -- The unworthy deacon Stephen Methodius Hayes E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Web: http://www.orthodoxy.faithweb.com/ http://khyanya.wordpress.com/ Phone: 012-333-6727 or 083-342-3563

Perhaps some irony there, as Darwin also married his cousin Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) > > And ir was partly as a result of Darwin's ideas that the eugenics > movement arose, which led to the banning on cousin marriage in the > USA that you mention.

WOW! This certainly is an interesting subject. Let's get the record straight. Leviticus Chap. 18 lists the prohibited relationships. It does NOT prohibit a relationship with a first cousin. It is certainly not encouraged in the Jewish religion - for obvious reasons - but it is not forbidden. If you want to read a really interesting book on the subject, try My 15 Grandmothers by Genie Milgrom. Louis Zetler -----Original Message----- From: south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Rodger via Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 4:09 PM To: Irene de Villiers; south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] FORBIDDEN MARRIAGE LAWS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM [!!!] This taboo derives from the ancient Jewish laws and there are lots of references to such matters in the Pentateuch. It is also found in tribal societies living in small communities; sometimes they preferred to marry within the tribe (e.g. instances in the Bible of going back to the country of origin to find brides for the sons), but sometimes it is seen as being better to bring in foreign blood, as later in the time of David and the Kings. It is all about the the knowledge, from experience, that pastoral people have of the importance of cross-breeding and the consequent suspicion of in-breeding: that the latter tends to weaken the stock in various ways. The more ridiculous side of the US Churches leans rather more to the Old Testament than to the New; the same side that believe that the whole of Creation took place in 4004 BC. Anyone who has attended an old-style Southern Baptist Church will recognise the syndrome right away. Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com On 07/04/2015, at 10:33 PM, Irene de Villiers via wrote: > > > On Apr 6, 2015, at 11:27 PM, Pat Brown via wrote: > >> I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in >> South Africa. > > Nor me, but it seems it was socially taboo even for distant cousins. > For example, Cecil John Rhodes was in love with Janey Rhodes my g reat hrandmother - and they met for frequent vacatosn and funl but never married "because they were cousins". But they are really distant cousins vie great grandfathers being brothers ir soe such - nothing close at all. > > But if you want to know who is behind the times even in THIS century, it is the Yanks. > Where I now live in WA state it is illegal for first cousins to marry and in Texas it is not only illegal but is a criminal offense! IN Texas the ban was only made in 2005. Talk about crazy. > Before the USA civil war there was no ban. It has been added a few states at a time since t hen by ridiculous claims written by fools but believed despite real papers to the contrary. Americans can be such terrible sheeple I am afraid. > Here's a map of the stupidity, the dark blueshaded areas see sense, not the rest: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States > _by_state > > By the way the originator of genetics and evolution was Darwin, and > he and his wife were first cousins:-) Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins. > > In Europe only Austria Hungary and Spain banned cousin marriage in 19th century. > But the Christian church made it taboo in some places and that has to be where it originates in South Africa as a taboo. > Heres a world map of current first cousin restrictions, again dark blue is marriage allowed, red not, marroon criminal. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#/media/File:CousinMarria > geWorld.svg > > Namaste, > Irene > > -- > Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. > P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. > www.Furryboots.info > (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) "Man who say > it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi My Parents are 1st cousins and I am one of 6 girls and 1 boy ­ we are all over 50 years old and still going strong. There might be a bit of insanity in the family or illnesses like ³genealogy² but we are all just perfect !!! My dads sister also married a first cousin. Cheers Heather From: Bart Simon via <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Organization: BS Reply-To: Bart Simon <thewanderer@iburst.co.za>, <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2015 at 2:47 PM To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] FORBIDDEN MARRIAGE LAWS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM[!!!] Hello: According to the 1560 charts, it does not mention first cousins. They were allowed to marry, and was very common to do so. Bart. -----Original Message----- There is nothing genetically wrong with first cousins marrying. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

When my wife and I were planning to marry (many years ago) I found a book that listed genetic diseases by country of origin. For England there were none. For those of Jewish origin there were a few. For (white) South Africa there was a list of about fifty! I later became persuaded it's not because there are more genetic diseases among South Africans, it's because the genealogy is so well documented that the genetic lines have been traced. Iceland is another country where the gene pool is concentrated and relatively isolated. In my own tree I have many instances of the tree collapsing due to marriages between relatives. You can see the same thing in my trees of dead presidents on e-family.co.za In the words of the old hillbilly joke, I'm related to myself! ;-) Keith

Hi Irene, As I understand it, especially in "South Africa" in the old days, it was often encouraged to "build" the family and protect assets such as farms etc. What about the Hilbillies then? :-) Regards, Colin Mohr ----- Original Message ----- From: "Irene de Villiers via" <south-africa@rootsweb.com> To: "Pat Brown" <mistyhaven@gmail.com>; <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 2:33 PM Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] FORBIDDEN MARRIAGE LAWS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM[!!!] > > On Apr 6, 2015, at 11:27 PM, Pat Brown via wrote: > >> I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in >> South >> Africa. > > Nor me, but it seems it was socially taboo even for distant cousins. > For example, Cecil John Rhodes was in love with Janey Rhodes my g reat > hrandmother - and they met for frequent vacatosn and funl but never > married "because they were cousins". But they are really distant cousins > vie great grandfathers being brothers ir soe such - nothing close at all. > > But if you want to know who is behind the times even in THIS century, it > is the Yanks. > Where I now live in WA state it is illegal for first cousins to marry and > in Texas it is not only illegal but is a criminal offense! IN Texas the > ban was only made in 2005. Talk about crazy. > Before the USA civil war there was no ban. It has been added a few states > at a time since t hen by ridiculous claims written by fools but believed > despite real papers to the contrary. Americans can be such terrible > sheeple I am afraid. > Here's a map of the stupidity, the dark blueshaded areas see sense, not > the rest: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_state > > By the way the originator of genetics and evolution was Darwin, and he > and his wife were first cousins:-) > Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins. > > In Europe only Austria Hungary and Spain banned cousin marriage in 19th > century. > But the Christian church made it taboo in some places and that has to be > where it originates in South Africa as a taboo. > Heres a world map of current first cousin restrictions, again dark blue is > marriage allowed, red not, marroon criminal. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#/media/File:CousinMarriageWorld.svg > > Namaste, > Irene > > -- > Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. > P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. > www.Furryboots.info > (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) > "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hello: According to the 1560 charts, it does not mention first cousins. They were allowed to marry, and was very common to do so. Bart. -----Original Message----- There is nothing genetically wrong with first cousins marrying.

On Apr 7, 2015, at 11:01 AM, Deacon Stephen Hayes wrote: > > And ir was partly as a result of Darwin's ideas that the eugenics > movement arose, which led to the banning on cousin marriage in the > USA that you mention. On the contrary, both Charles Darwin and George Darwin supported cousin marriage. Charles Darwin was the one who developed genetics of inheritance and the evolution of species. And he married his first cousin after considering the pros and cons carefully. He knew the risks of two recessive genes meeting were minimal. He had nothing to do with banning cousin marriage. Obviously:-) George Darwin in UK, was the one who wrote against banning cousin marriage. The link you provided does not refer to any Darwin at all by the way. Physician Samuel Merrifield Bemiss in USA had written a report for the American Medical Association, which concluded "that multiplication of the same blood by in-and-in marrying does incontestably lead in the aggregate to the physical and mental depravation of the offspring". This was contradicted strongly by George Darwin's study and also by that of Alan Huth in England and Robert Newman in New York. But it was to no avail and by 1880, thirteen states banned first cousin marriage. The genetic facts are that genes come in dominant and recessive types. It takes one dominant gene to show a genetic feature or characteristic physically. It takes two recessive genes (one from each parent) to show a genetic feature physically. What everyone forgets is: This applies to beneficial major genes as well as non-beneficial major genes. The incidence of non-beneficial major genes is extremely low in the general population. The incidence of non-beneficial epigene switches has been ignored but is responsible for the MAJORITY of non-beneficial inheritance. For example if your grandmother suffered through a famine, her epigene switch for diabetes will be ON and everyoine descended from her wil inherit the diabetic tendency, NOT becasue of a major gene of the recessive or dominant type but becasue of an ACQUIRED epigene switch position, due to an external event. This tendency to this illness will continus to be inherited down the generations unless and until the epigene switch is reversed back to the beneficial position against diabetes tendency. Epigenes are the majority of our inherited genetic material. They have nothing to do with cousin or related marriage. Major genes are in the single digit percentage - 1 or 2 percent is the current estimate - of genetic inheritence. Only these can have an effect on related marriages' offspring, and only if a nasty one HAPPENS to be present in both who marry and HAPPENS to be a recessive gene. Dominant genes will always show the adverse genetic effect visibly, so if you marry someone with a dominant gene defect showing, then half your kids WILL have it also showing. Recessive genes do not show if there is only one copy (from one parent and not from both) but if there is a copy from both parents then it will show. BUT: To know if there is a recessive gene you do not like, in yhour family, you only have ot look back three generations incouding ALL levels to see if it is there. By all levels, I mean you need to check not just direct ancestoirs but all their siblings and siblings offspring. If you check those three generations properly, and find no nasty genes then there are none to combine or cause problems. Your point that a LOT of marriages with relatives can be bad, is well taken, but not becase of deleterious genes. It is because the more DIFFERENT pairs of genes an individual has (ie different ones from each parent rather than identical ones for any gene pair), the more healthy the IMMUNE system will be. This is called genetic robustness. The easiest example of this is in the Cheetah population. There are not enough of them to allow for a great deal of diversity in the gene pairs. They have a lot of pairs of genes that are the same for both genes - same gene form mother and father in MOST of their gene pairs. I work with genetics in animals and a recent client with rescued chetahs in UAE, had three of her eight cheetahs die, and not from the virus the vet claimed responsible. They died of copper deficiency. One young lion was also affected but surviverd and all the gazelles. ONLY the cheetahs actually died. Only the cheetahs had such a weak immune system that they had no defences to keep them going. They are like the canary in the mine, they show what is wrong and die from it. [The desert turns out to be copper deficienet there, and so the food was also copper deficient. The humans also were affected. There is now a program in place to fix it all, and the other five cheetahs are well again.] SO if you want the healthiest children, you shoud ideally marry someone who looks as little like you and as much different as possible! for example a wide chested person with a narrow deep chected one, a long legged one with a short legged one, and so on....as many different genes as possible. How related you are is irrelevant, unless there is a rare unwanted recessive gene within three generations. How different you are IS relevant. Genetically speaking, You'd do well to marry your sibling if they are very different from you. But you would be in bad shape to marry someone who looks much like you, with many genes in common with you, even if they are completely unrelated. And you might check into epigene tendencies though that is a lot harder to do without genetic testing. Better to assume a lot of epigene switches are in bad spots and do some switch reversing (To date only homeopathy can do it predictably. The geneticists are working on chemical ways - but herbalists have found that some foods will do it for some genes.) There is an "opposites attract" example next door to me: The dog is called a "pugadore" - it's a cross between pug and labrador. Ugliest thing I ever saw, so much so that you have to look away as your eyes do not believe what they see. Yaps like a pug but in a labrador voice. Has a short barrel body of incongruous size compared to the rest, which is pug size legs and tail. No neck, but a minisize lab head stuck on in front. Looks like a small drum with thin twigs sticking out to balance on, and something inside with its head sticking out. I do not think it is necessary to go to that extreme:-) Namaste, Irene -- Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.Furryboots.info (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

Hi Andrew, It seems the club foot syndrome, if I may call it that, presents in different forms. Our family all had shortened Achilles tendons which resulted in either one foot or both feet being turned inwards. At the time my sister and I were treated not much was known about it. It was cut cut. This was 1948/51 and I remember have plaster casts for almost two years. We spent many months in the Hope Home Childrens Home in JHB. The result of all the operations is that our ankles were fused and to this day we cannot move our ankles. Such is life Regards Rod g Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Rodger via <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Sender: south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2015 22:58:37 To: Irene de Villiers<furryboots@icehouse.net>; <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Reply-To: Andrew Rodger <rodgera@audioio.com>, south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] [ZA-EC] Mavis Hobbs I have found this discussion most interesting because we had a club-foot in our family: my brother, born in Cape Town in March 1939. Seeing this was before the War (and my mother was likewise born before WW1, in 1911), and it was her second pregnancy (I was born in September 1936, and my other two brothers in September 1942 in Cape Town and September 1946 in Mutare), none of us with any real nutritional deficiencies such as one might have found in the most affected countries in both wars, this must just have been some awkwardness in the boy's position. He was a very large baby and the birth was difficult and prolonged for that reason, but it doesn't seem likely to be the cause. My brother was fitted with corrective boots, which was probably painful for him (though he didn't complain as far as I can remember -- I can just remember him still wearing them, but he was out of them by the time my father returned from the War in late 1945), but was certainly painful for my mother, as he was a lively baby and kicked vigorously when laid on his back, to the great discomfort of her elbows! She later became somewhat arthritic in her later years, not least in her elbows, but lived to 91 without ever losing her vigour, though the last time I saw her, when I went over to SA for her 90th birthday, she didn't know who I was: a bit of a shock though I had been forewarned. My own kids had no such problems, so my wife's elbows are just fine into her late 70s, though mine are a bit wonky, along with much of the rest of me, but for quite other reasons. In passing, my brother-in-law used to do some work at the Orphanage close to the place in Mowbray, but that was much later, when it was for all races. Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com On 06/04/2015, at 8:14 PM, Irene de Villiers via wrote: > > > On Apr 4, 2015, at 11:07 PM, rodg via wrote: > >> As far as I understand polio is an infection and club feet is an heredity condition. >> Which did young Mavis have? > > Dear Rod, > Polio is indeed a viral infection. > > But club foot is most often a condition of a crowded uterus. If the mother is malnourished or has a toxic diet or takes in toxins (eg smoking) or has a nutritional deficiency, the uterus is poorly fed and the amn iotic sac tends to be too small also (difficult to make fluid with malnutrition), the feet can become mispositioned in the womb due to crowding and the individual is born with a foot facing the wrong way called "clubfoot" though it is not a good description. If repaired before age two, it is a simple operation as there has been no significant pressure on the bones of the feet, in the wrong direction. > Later it becomes major surgery as bones succumb to pressure and walking on a foot in the wrong position aggravates the situation and forces incorrect bone growth. Sadly the need to help the foot u nwind to the correct position was not understood till about mic-20th century. > > The same issues occur more frequently in animals with multiple births but there too it is a matter of whether the uterus could expand easily or was undernourished or incorrectly nourished and failed to expand well and provide a suitable amniotic volume and cramped the infants. In kittens for example club feet are quite common in a large litter, but they often can come right in a matter of weeks with very little help. > > The homeopathic remedy caullophyllum 30C, given to the mother of any species during pregnancy, a few times like monthly for 6 months in humans, weekly for 6 weeks in cats, but not late in pregnancy will ensure flexibility and womb muscle strength, helping infants to stretch thanks to the excellent muscle tone and the uterus to expel the infant easily and painlessly at birth. Those who knew homeopathy (it has been around over 200 yrs) before the medical associations feared the competition and shut it down shortly after the 1918 flu epidemic (in which only 2% of people on homeopathy died but 98% of those using aspirin died), would not have seen club foot. > > Officially most doctors claim not to know why clubfoot happens in that they do not see or admit the correlation with nutritional factors, but they do recognize the association with toxic factors (go figure!). As a cat breeder and geneticist, I know this is the cause in cats and I agree with my friend who runs a childrens orthopedic hospital (Mowbray Cottage Hospital in Cape Town, which used to be for colored children only, where incidence was high) that nutrition is the single greatest predictive factor. She ran a program to turn that around and also to ensure early surgery for victims, with corporate donations, which was very successful in the 80s and 90s. I do not know if it is still going. I moved to USA in early 1998. > > To know whethere someone has club foot or polio, would need photos or a description. The difference is clear visually. Polio involves atrrophied limbs, not just a foot pointing the wrong way. > > Namaste, > Irene > -- > Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. > P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. > www.Furryboots.info > (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) > "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hello Pat and Irene, Pat wrote: PBv> I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in South PBv> Africa. This has always seemed odd to me as well as there is a blood PBv> relationship between them, whereas some of the forbidden marriages would PBv> have been perfectly fine, even if the other's spouse was still alive, as PBv> long as they were divorced of course. There was never in South Africa (or in the UK) any restriction on cousins marrying, but while in the UK marriage with a deceased wife's sister or deceased husband's brother was illegal, it was never so in South Africa and there many instances of such among the Afrikaner family trees. Irene wrote: > There is nothing genetically wrong with first cousins marrying. > The old wives tales about it had no basis in science. When done once or twice, maybe, but in my Van Rensburg ancestors, the children of a Van Rensburg and a Burger, each married to a Van der Merwe sister, married as first cousins and one of their sons again married his cousin by his mother's sister: http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk/rensburg/I301.html and produced, among 12 children, one deaf, one deaf and dumb and one disabled (gebrekkelijk), so it pays to take care! All the best, Richard -- Richard Ball, Norfolk, England http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk richard.ball@ballfamilyrecords.co.uk

On Apr 7, 2015, at 6:09 AM, Richard Ball via wrote: > > and produced, among 12 children, one deaf, one deaf and dumb and one > disabled (gebrekkelijk), so it pays to take care! I covered that potential problem when two genes meet, in my email though you deleted it. But the point is that this happens in unrelated people as well as related ones. The incidence in related ones is 1.5% higher if you want to be exact. Namaste, Irene -- Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.Furryboots.info (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in South Africa. This has always seemed odd to me as well as there is a blood relationship between them, whereas some of the forbidden marriages would have been perfectly fine, even if the other's spouse was still alive, as long as they were divorced of course. But I think many of those restrictions were put in place strictly based on some sort of religious notion which had nothing to do with blood relationship or genetics (which was obviously not even known about in those times). Of course, knowing what we do today about DNA and genetics many of those illogical restrictions could be scrapped. On 7 April 2015 at 07:28, Laquita Belinfante via <south-africa@rootsweb.com> wrote: > Hello Bart. This is most informative. > > In the BELINFANTE I find since 1526, 23 instances of 1st cousins marrying, > the last being my paternal 2nd Great Grandparents Aron and Hanna X 1838 > Amsterdam, The Netherlands. They were Jewish. Also my mother's younger > sister married her 1st cousin in 1958 in Johannesburg. They have 5 > children, > all perfectly normal, as are the 10 great grandchildren and no infantile > deaths or mis-carriages. > > Lucky > > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > http://www.avast.com > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Hello Bart. This is most informative. In the BELINFANTE I find since 1526, 23 instances of 1st cousins marrying, the last being my paternal 2nd Great Grandparents Aron and Hanna X 1838 Amsterdam, The Netherlands. They were Jewish. Also my mother's younger sister married her 1st cousin in 1958 in Johannesburg. They have 5 children, all perfectly normal, as are the 10 great grandchildren and no infantile deaths or mis-carriages. Lucky --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com

On Apr 6, 2015, at 11:27 PM, Pat Brown via wrote: > I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in South > Africa. Nor me, but it seems it was socially taboo even for distant cousins. For example, Cecil John Rhodes was in love with Janey Rhodes my g reat hrandmother - and they met for frequent vacatosn and funl but never married "because they were cousins". But they are really distant cousins vie great grandfathers being brothers ir soe such - nothing close at all. But if you want to know who is behind the times even in THIS century, it is the Yanks. Where I now live in WA state it is illegal for first cousins to marry and in Texas it is not only illegal but is a criminal offense! IN Texas the ban was only made in 2005. Talk about crazy. Before the USA civil war there was no ban. It has been added a few states at a time since t hen by ridiculous claims written by fools but believed despite real papers to the contrary. Americans can be such terrible sheeple I am afraid. Here's a map of the stupidity, the dark blueshaded areas see sense, not the rest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_state By the way the originator of genetics and evolution was Darwin, and he and his wife were first cousins:-) Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins. In Europe only Austria Hungary and Spain banned cousin marriage in 19th century. But the Christian church made it taboo in some places and that has to be where it originates in South Africa as a taboo. Heres a world map of current first cousin restrictions, again dark blue is marriage allowed, red not, marroon criminal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#/media/File:CousinMarriageWorld.svg Namaste, Irene -- Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.Furryboots.info (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

On Apr 6, 2015, at 10:28 PM, Laquita Belinfante via wrote: > > In the BELINFANTE I find since 1526, 23 instances of 1st cousins marrying, > the last being my paternal 2nd Great Grandparents Aron and Hanna X 1838 > Amsterdam, The Netherlands. They were Jewish. Also my mother's younger > sister married her 1st cousin in 1958 in Johannesburg. They have 5 children, > all perfectly normal, as are the 10 great grandchildren and no infantile > deaths or mis-carriages. There is nothing genetically wrong with first cousins marrying. The old wives tales about it had no basis in science. IF - and it is a big IF - IF there was a recessive gene for a deleterious feature, it will have a slight chance of occurring in related matches compared with unrelated. But most families have no such gene issues and then it matters not at all. Namaste, Irene -- Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.Furryboots.info (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

http://www.genetic-genealogy.co.uk/Toc115570145.html Maybe worth a read. Bart. ===

On Apr 4, 2015, at 11:07 PM, rodg via wrote: > As far as I understand polio is an infection and club feet is an heredity condition. > Which did young Mavis have? Dear Rod, Polio is indeed a viral infection. But club foot is most often a condition of a crowded uterus. If the mother is malnourished or has a toxic diet or takes in toxins (eg smoking) or has a nutritional deficiency, the uterus is poorly fed and the amn iotic sac tends to be too small also (difficult to make fluid with malnutrition), the feet can become mispositioned in the womb due to crowding and the individual is born with a foot facing the wrong way called "clubfoot" though it is not a good description. If repaired before age two, it is a simple operation as there has been no significant pressure on the bones of the feet, in the wrong direction. Later it becomes major surgery as bones succumb to pressure and walking on a foot in the wrong position aggravates the situation and forces incorrect bone growth. Sadly the need to help the foot u nwind to the correct position was not understood till about mic-20th century. The same issues occur more frequently in animals with multiple births but there too it is a matter of whether the uterus could expand easily or was undernourished or incorrectly nourished and failed to expand well and provide a suitable amniotic volume and cramped the infants. In kittens for example club feet are quite common in a large litter, but they often can come right in a matter of weeks with very little help. The homeopathic remedy caullophyllum 30C, given to the mother of any species during pregnancy, a few times like monthly for 6 months in humans, weekly for 6 weeks in cats, but not late in pregnancy will ensure flexibility and womb muscle strength, helping infants to stretch thanks to the excellent muscle tone and the uterus to expel the infant easily and painlessly at birth. Those who knew homeopathy (it has been around over 200 yrs) before the medical associations feared the competition and shut it down shortly after the 1918 flu epidemic (in which only 2% of people on homeopathy died but 98% of those using aspirin died), would not have seen club foot. Officially most doctors claim not to know why clubfoot happens in that they do not see or admit the correlation with nutritional factors, but they do recognize the association with toxic factors (go figure!). As a cat breeder and geneticist, I know this is the cause in cats and I agree with my friend who runs a childrens orthopedic hospital (Mowbray Cottage Hospital in Cape Town, which used to be for colored children only, where incidence was high) that nutrition is the single greatest predictive factor. She ran a program to turn that around and also to ensure early surgery for victims, with corporate donations, which was very successful in the 80s and 90s. I do not know if it is still going. I moved to USA in early 1998. To know whethere someone has club foot or polio, would need photos or a description. The difference is clear visually. Polio involves atrrophied limbs, not just a foot pointing the wrong way. Namaste, Irene -- Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.Furryboots.info (Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."