Thread: attitudes about genealogy

I have friends and relatives with an interest in genealogy. I've explored it a little, not so much out of family pride, but I'm kind of interested in how or why people ended up where they did historically. But that's not really my question. I noticed that people seem much more interested in two lines lines of descent - the mother's, mother's mother's mother, etc, and the father's father's father etc. even though they don't really contribute anything more to your history or genes than your mother's father's mother's mother' father. I guess from a science point of view, there's the preservation of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome, if you want to have your DNA analyzed and trace haplogroups, but even people who aren't interested in the science end of it seem more attracted to those two lines.

Could be just an intuitive progression? My father pursued both lines for a little while but it does quickly escalate into unmanageable amounts of people.

Some other thing this made me think about was how often in discussion of gender differences people act as if men and women literally evolved along separate lines because there were some different evolutionary forces on them. I understand how hormones can modify gene expression, but probably not all of them on all 22 autosomes, and genes do get passed from male to female to male, etc.

Another completely unrelated thought - How will genealogy change if we maintain all the current data we have about people? It is weird to think of my daughters descendents being able to view her collection of selfies and facebook from highschool. In the past, people usually knew something quite a bit about their grandparents, but it's like that next generation fades behind the event horison. I have only fragments of information about great grandparents and beyond - the location of a certain farm, who fought in the Civil War, who got struck by lightning or blew up in a cannery. (If you want to be remembered by your descendants, die an unusual death.)

Genetically it makes more sense to track maternal lines, because there's always a significant amount of cases where the father isn't really known or the recorded husband from an official record (cheating, rape etc). Unfortunately though, men are tracked a lot better. For my family's case, of French-Canadian ancestors, many of the 18th and 19th century women had changed names to French (and later English after 1870) from Native American ones with no way to track their particular lines.

The maternal grand-sire effect has long been observed by horse breeders. Going forward, it may also be of interest in humans, especially as we learn more about genomic imprinting.

The Cornell University study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June, shows that the genes in a fetus that come from the father dominate in building the fetal side of the placenta.
Genes work in pairs: one from each parent. But about 1 percent of mammalian genes choose sides, a phenomenon called genomic imprinting. Imprinted genes use molecules that bind to DNA (epigenetic tags) to quiet one half and let the other lead.

Read more: Placental study helps explain maternal grandsire effect in breeding - Breeding, Research - Horsetalk.co.nz

Originally all humans came from Africa to start with then migrated through the Mid East, Europe or Asia then out to other places.

Originally Posted by scheherazade

The maternal grand-sire effect has long been observed by horse breeders. Going forward, it may also be of interest in humans, especially as we learn more about genomic imprinting.

The Cornell University study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June, shows that the genes in a fetus that come from the father dominate in building the fetal side of the placenta.
Genes work in pairs: one from each parent. But about 1 percent of mammalian genes choose sides, a phenomenon called genomic imprinting. Imprinted genes use molecules that bind to DNA (epigenetic tags) to quiet one half and let the other lead.

Read more: Placental study helps explain maternal grandsire effect in breeding - Breeding, Research - Horsetalk.co.nz

That's really interesting. Thanks for the link.

This episode of "do aliens believe in go" is more psychological than scientific. The golf study is stupid and the acid drink study is the work of an imbecile. It give credence to the fact that those that believe in religion cannot think for themselves and will endure pain for nothing more than a word.

Originally Posted by Leah123

This episode of "do aliens believe in go" is more psychological than scientific. The golf study is stupid and the acid drink study is the work of an imbecile. It give credence to the fact that those that believe in religion cannot think for themselves and will endure pain for nothing more than a word.

Obviously you're reading - and replying to - a different thread and set of posts altogether.
I'd be intrigued as to which one it actually is.

"Males are a breading experiment conducted by females".

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Genetically it makes more sense to track maternal lines, because there's always a significant amount of cases where the father isn't really known or the recorded husband from an official record (cheating, rape etc). Unfortunately though, men are tracked a lot better. For my family's case, of French-Canadian ancestors, many of the 18th and 19th century women had changed names to French (and later English after 1870) from Native American ones with no way to track their particular lines.

Hmm. You make a good point... On the other hand however, there are recessive traits that skip, and are passed on from the father. I carry the gene for color blindness, for example. Even though it's on the x chromosome, I got it from my father. The chances of any daughter I have being color blind are vanishingly small... but any sons I might have will have a 50/50 chance of being color blind... and then passing that gene on to their children. So it seems to make sense to me to look at both sides of the tree, at least for the first few branches back