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

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."

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.