How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

--
athel

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

2018-10-08 09:50:36 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 11:10:46 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

LFS

2018-10-08 11:03:56 UTC

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

Very true.

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

Peter Moylan

2018-10-08 12:51:50 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris
Johnson - the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK -
traces his genes to King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a
certain Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to
a(nother) forgettable member of nobility.
My question (subject of thread): How many generations does it
take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a
reference to his ancestry.

Very true.

I assume, though, that occam wanted us to ignore that aspect. (So he
should have chosen a less controversial subject.) My answer is "zero
generations".

Why? Because those of us who are interested in genealogy consider true
genetic inheritance to be more important than what the official papers
say. We want to know who the mother and father are, and are less
interested in whether they were married to each other. Of course, in
most cases this is uncheckable, but documentation tends to be better for
the nobility.

Side comment: I have some involvement with adoptees who are trying to
trace their parents. (My wife is running a workshop on this topic later
this month, and I'm one of the helpers who knows just a little about
interpreting DNA tests.) One of the demands of these people is access to
non-falsified birth certificates. (Falsification was, and perhaps is,
standard in the case of adoption.) It is very clear that they want to
know about their true parents. They might have respect and love for
their adoptive parents, but for them that is irrelevant to the problem
of tracing their ancestry.

But let's go back a step. Suppose that person A was conceived on the
wrong side of the blanket. In common terminology, A is a bastard.
However, the children and grandchildren of A are not bastards. The label
stops at the first generation.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

David Kleinecke

2018-10-08 19:23:05 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris
Johnson - the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK -
traces his genes to King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a
certain Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to
a(nother) forgettable member of nobility.
My question (subject of thread): How many generations does it
take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a
reference to his ancestry.

Very true.

I assume, though, that occam wanted us to ignore that aspect. (So he
should have chosen a less controversial subject.) My answer is "zero
generations".
Why? Because those of us who are interested in genealogy consider true
genetic inheritance to be more important than what the official papers
say. We want to know who the mother and father are, and are less
interested in whether they were married to each other. Of course, in
most cases this is uncheckable, but documentation tends to be better for
the nobility.
Side comment: I have some involvement with adoptees who are trying to
trace their parents. (My wife is running a workshop on this topic later
this month, and I'm one of the helpers who knows just a little about
interpreting DNA tests.) One of the demands of these people is access to
non-falsified birth certificates. (Falsification was, and perhaps is,
standard in the case of adoption.) It is very clear that they want to
know about their true parents. They might have respect and love for
their adoptive parents, but for them that is irrelevant to the problem
of tracing their ancestry.
But let's go back a step. Suppose that person A was conceived on the
wrong side of the blanket. In common terminology, A is a bastard.
However, the children and grandchildren of A are not bastards. The label
stops at the first generation.

William I the Bastard
William II the ?

Gay probably.

Mack A. Damia

2018-10-08 19:49:04 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 12:23:05 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke

Post by David Kleinecke

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris
Johnson - the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK -
traces his genes to King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a
certain Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to
a(nother) forgettable member of nobility.
My question (subject of thread): How many generations does it
take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a
reference to his ancestry.

Very true.

I assume, though, that occam wanted us to ignore that aspect. (So he
should have chosen a less controversial subject.) My answer is "zero
generations".
Why? Because those of us who are interested in genealogy consider true
genetic inheritance to be more important than what the official papers
say. We want to know who the mother and father are, and are less
interested in whether they were married to each other. Of course, in
most cases this is uncheckable, but documentation tends to be better for
the nobility.
Side comment: I have some involvement with adoptees who are trying to
trace their parents. (My wife is running a workshop on this topic later
this month, and I'm one of the helpers who knows just a little about
interpreting DNA tests.) One of the demands of these people is access to
non-falsified birth certificates. (Falsification was, and perhaps is,
standard in the case of adoption.) It is very clear that they want to
know about their true parents. They might have respect and love for
their adoptive parents, but for them that is irrelevant to the problem
of tracing their ancestry.
But let's go back a step. Suppose that person A was conceived on the
wrong side of the blanket. In common terminology, A is a bastard.
However, the children and grandchildren of A are not bastards. The label
stops at the first generation.

William I the Bastard
William II the ?
Gay probably.

Practical joker.

He and his brother, Henry, emptied a chamber pot onto the head of
brother Robert from an upper gallery. (circa 1078)

Robert was not amused.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-08 20:47:24 UTC

Post by Mack A. Damia
On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 12:23:05 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke

Post by David Kleinecke

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris
Johnson - the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK -
traces his genes to King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a
certain Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to
a(nother) forgettable member of nobility.
My question (subject of thread): How many generations does it
take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a
reference to his ancestry.

Very true.

I assume, though, that occam wanted us to ignore that aspect. (So he
should have chosen a less controversial subject.) My answer is "zero
generations".
Why? Because those of us who are interested in genealogy consider true
genetic inheritance to be more important than what the official papers
say. We want to know who the mother and father are, and are less
interested in whether they were married to each other. Of course, in
most cases this is uncheckable, but documentation tends to be better for
the nobility.
Side comment: I have some involvement with adoptees who are trying to
trace their parents. (My wife is running a workshop on this topic later
this month, and I'm one of the helpers who knows just a little about
interpreting DNA tests.) One of the demands of these people is access to
non-falsified birth certificates. (Falsification was, and perhaps is,
standard in the case of adoption.) It is very clear that they want to
know about their true parents. They might have respect and love for
their adoptive parents, but for them that is irrelevant to the problem
of tracing their ancestry.
But let's go back a step. Suppose that person A was conceived on the
wrong side of the blanket. In common terminology, A is a bastard.
However, the children and grandchildren of A are not bastards. The label
stops at the first generation.

William I the Bastard
William II the ?
Gay probably.

Practical joker.
He and his brother, Henry, emptied a chamber pot onto the head of
brother Robert from an upper gallery. (circa 1078)
Robert was not amused.

Gosh. I wonder why not.

--
athel

Mack A. Damia

2018-10-08 20:52:40 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 22:47:24 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Mack A. Damia
On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 12:23:05 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke

Post by David Kleinecke

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris
Johnson - the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK -
traces his genes to King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a
certain Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to
a(nother) forgettable member of nobility.
My question (subject of thread): How many generations does it
take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a
reference to his ancestry.

Very true.

I assume, though, that occam wanted us to ignore that aspect. (So he
should have chosen a less controversial subject.) My answer is "zero
generations".
Why? Because those of us who are interested in genealogy consider true
genetic inheritance to be more important than what the official papers
say. We want to know who the mother and father are, and are less
interested in whether they were married to each other. Of course, in
most cases this is uncheckable, but documentation tends to be better for
the nobility.
Side comment: I have some involvement with adoptees who are trying to
trace their parents. (My wife is running a workshop on this topic later
this month, and I'm one of the helpers who knows just a little about
interpreting DNA tests.) One of the demands of these people is access to
non-falsified birth certificates. (Falsification was, and perhaps is,
standard in the case of adoption.) It is very clear that they want to
know about their true parents. They might have respect and love for
their adoptive parents, but for them that is irrelevant to the problem
of tracing their ancestry.
But let's go back a step. Suppose that person A was conceived on the
wrong side of the blanket. In common terminology, A is a bastard.
However, the children and grandchildren of A are not bastards. The label
stops at the first generation.

William I the Bastard
William II the ?
Gay probably.

Practical joker.
He and his brother, Henry, emptied a chamber pot onto the head of
brother Robert from an upper gallery. (circa 1078)
Robert was not amused.

Gosh. I wonder why not.

According to chroniclers, there was a brawl, and daddy had to break it
up.

HVS

2018-10-08 19:58:58 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 12:23:05 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke
<***@gmail.com> wrote:

-snip -

Post by David Kleinecke
William I the Bastard
William II the ?

Ginger, wunnit?

Post by David Kleinecke
Gay probably.

Always a possibility.

HVS

2018-10-08 13:07:52 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-
we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

Very true.

AIUI, it's also an accurate reference to some of his offspring.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng (30yrs) and BrEng (34yrs), indiscriminately mixed

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-08 13:31:08 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-
we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

Very true.

AIUI, it's also an accurate reference to some of his offspring.
--

No, it is not.

Janet

2018-10-08 16:38:50 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-
we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

Very true.

AIUI, it's also an accurate reference to some of his offspring.
--

No, it is not.

It's true that children are no longer legally designated illegitimate,
or bastards.
It's also true that married adulterer BJ has twice fathered a child by
other women.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/may/21/boris-johnson-
fathered-child-affair

Janet

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-08 16:52:12 UTC

Post by Janet

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-
we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

Very true.

AIUI, it's also an accurate reference to some of his offspring.
--

No, it is not.

It's true that children are no longer legally designated illegitimate,
or bastards.
It's also true that married adulterer BJ has twice fathered a child by
other women.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/may/21/boris-johnson-
fathered-child-affair

Ahem. It is alleged that he fathered a child by a woman other
than his wife on two separate occasions. As far as I know neither
case has been verified and therefore nobody is entitled to state,
"It is true ..." free of legal responsibility to prove it so! It will also
shortly not be correct to claim that he is married.

Janet

2018-10-08 17:43:53 UTC

Post by Janet

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-
we-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

If people call Boris Johnson a bastard it's unlikely to be a reference
to his ancestry.

Very true.

AIUI, it's also an accurate reference to some of his offspring.
--

No, it is not.

It's true that children are no longer legally designated illegitimate,
or bastards.
It's also true that married adulterer BJ has twice fathered a child by
other women.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/may/21/boris-johnson-
fathered-child-affair

His paternity was confirmed in court and he hasn't contested the
mother's statement or the court's ruling.

Janet.

Richard Yates

2018-10-08 12:49:56 UTC

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)

And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Peter Moylan

2018-10-08 13:46:55 UTC

OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

Post by occam
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to
a(nother) forgettable member of nobility.
My question (subject of thread): How many generations does it take
to shake off the label 'bastard'?

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

That statistic is, I imagine, because of the large number of unmarried
mothers. (I don't know the answer for my own country, but I should look
it up.) That's not quite what happened in past generations. As I
understand it, the historical bastards fell into two quite distinct classes:
-- children of serving maids who were impregnated by their employers;
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.
I have no idea of the relative incidence of those two cases, although I
suspect that someone must have looked into it.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Richard Yates

2018-10-08 13:54:45 UTC

On Tue, 9 Oct 2018 00:46:55 +1100, Peter Moylan

OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

That statistic is, I imagine, because of the large number of unmarried
mothers. (I don't know the answer for my own country, but I should look
it up.)

About 35%:
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/out-wedlock-births-rise-worldwide

Post by occam
That's not quite what happened in past generations. As I
-- children of serving maids who were impregnated by their employers;
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.
I have no idea of the relative incidence of those two cases, although I
suspect that someone must have looked into it.

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-08 14:06:01 UTC

OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a married
woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Post by occam
I have no idea of the relative incidence of those two cases, although I
suspect that someone must have looked into it.

Overall this seems to be a rather naive view of history. There's no reason
to suppose that the number of unmarried mothers has greatly increased.
It's simply that the shame and vilification attending such a state and the
consequent machinations undertaken to hide the facts are now much more
rarely seen.

Cheryl

2018-10-08 14:58:32 UTC

OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Proof was difficult, but there have been some famous cases in
aristocratic families in the UK in which it was known or assumed that
certain children were not fathered by the husband of the mother - the
Duchess of Devonshire was one famous example, although her husband
didn't raise the child - he was sent to his father's family.

--
Cheryl

J. J. Lodder

2018-10-08 19:18:17 UTC

-did-it_2.shtml

Post by occam
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

IIRC in this part of the world children born to married women
can't legally be bastards.
The husband is the father, by law,
irrespective of possibly other realities.
So, even if he divorces afterwards
he will still have to pay alimony,

Jan

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-08 19:22:46 UTC

Post by J. J. Lodder

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a married
woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Yes, that's the problem. Men felt that their estate should not go to the
son of another man.

Cheryl

2018-10-08 21:00:43 UTC

-did-it_2.shtml

Post by occam
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

I think that was true in the UK and countries with UK-inspired legal
systems, at least until DNA testing became possible. I don't know if
anyone challenged paternity with blood tests - I'd think they might
have. Lacking scientific evidence (or something equivalent, like the
husband having been away or incapable of sex through sickness for all of
the possible conception dates), the assumption was that the child of a
married woman was her husband's, no matter how much the child resembled
the milkman.

And with the usual caveat that legal systems based on common law have
often deviated both from the original and from other descendants of the
original over the centuries.

--
Cheryl

Quinn C

2018-10-09 17:22:33 UTC

-did-it_2.shtml

Post by occam
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

The German legal system isn't UK-inspired, but has the same rule about
married mothers (and a related rule, that the mother giving birth is
the legal mother, which makes surrogacy impractical.)

All through my childhood I heard lots of stories about paternity tests
based on blood type. I suspect the stories were more prominent in the
public consciousness than such challenges were in practice, though
(given that researchers suggest roughly one in ten children is
affected.)

Post by Cheryl
Lacking scientific evidence (or something equivalent, like the
husband having been away or incapable of sex through sickness for all of
the possible conception dates), the assumption was that the child of a
married woman was her husband's, no matter how much the child resembled
the milkman.

I think it's about more than evidence. It's an attempt at preserving
social cohesion, back when single mothers and children born out of
wedlock generally had hard lives. And that's not far back.

--
Be afraid of the lame - They'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old - They'll inherit your souls
-- Regina Spektor, Après moi

Tak To

2018-10-11 19:30:25 UTC

-did-it_2.shtml

Post by occam
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Even when the milkman and the husband are of different
races?

Post by Cheryl
And with the usual caveat that legal systems based on common law have
often deviated both from the original and from other descendants of the
original over the centuries.

--
Tak
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ***@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

Tak To

2018-10-11 19:24:53 UTC

-did-it_2.shtml

Post by occam
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

? There is no place for the father's name on the Dutch birth
certificate? Or the father's name on the birth certificate
has no legal standing?

Quinn C

2018-10-11 21:36:32 UTC

Post by Tak To

Post by J. J. Lodder
IIRC in this part of the world children born to married women
can't legally be bastards.
The husband is the father, by law,
irrespective of possibly other realities.
So, even if he divorces afterwards
he will still have to pay alimony,

? There is no place for the father's name on the Dutch birth
certificate? Or the father's name on the birth certificate
has no legal standing?

In Germany, I believe it's not possible to enter another name than the
husband's in the birth certificate by simple acclamation. You need to
go through a court process, contesting the fatherhood of the husband,
which is assumed by default.

And I know that the biological father has no right to initiate such a
court process. It has to be the mother or her husband (or, later, the
child.)

--
Novels and romances ... when habitually indulged in, exert a
disastrous influence on the nervous system, sufficient to explain
that frequency of hysteria and nervous disease which we find
among the highest classes. -- E.J. Tilt

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-08 15:34:15 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-08 16:02:50 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite
all the nonsense spoken about baby's having their mother's eyes and
their father's nose even when they do it tends to be to one parent or
the other rather than a combination of both and crucially it is a
resemblance to the parent at the same age. Before widespread access
to photography it was obviously not possible to compare 3 year old Tom
to 3 year old Tom's dad or 3 year old Tom's mum. With a high chance
that the child would not resemble the father for any of these reasons
it seems unlikely that there were many occasions on which being the
spit of Dai the Baker revealed a child to be not the offspring of Dai the
Blacksmith!

Cheryl

2018-10-08 17:28:32 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

It's not as clearcut as people used to believe, but there are certainly
cases where there's a strong family resemblance to the father, or among
the siblings. Or not, which might lead to a child suspected of having a
different father even though he didn't.

--
Cheryl

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-08 19:13:01 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
all the nonsense spoken about baby's having their mother's eyes and
their father's nose even when they do it tends to be to one parent or
the other rather than a combination of both and crucially it is a
resemblance to the parent at the same age. Before widespread access
to photography it was obviously not possible to compare 3 year old Tom
to 3 year old Tom's dad or 3 year old Tom's mum. With a high chance
that the child would not resemble the father for any of these reasons
it seems unlikely that there were many occasions on which being the
spit of Dai the Baker revealed a child to be not the offspring of Dai the
Blacksmith!

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-08 20:45:39 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.

When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess
that.

So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first
sight.

--
athel

Katy Jennison

2018-10-08 22:50:27 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc. --
do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight.

When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a woman
came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a street
in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said "You must
be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my mother since
my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance must have been
pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on accosting complete
strangers in a completely different place.

--
Katy Jennison

Cheryl

2018-10-08 23:31:19 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 23:50:27 +0100, Katy Jennison

Post by Katy Jennison
When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a woman
came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a street
in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said "You must
be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my mother since
my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance must have been
pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on accosting

complete

Post by Katy Jennison
strangers in a completely different place.

I was mistaken by a stranger for one of my aunts, but the odd thing
was that she's a maternal aunt and I was generally said to take after
my father's side of the family. I've known families in which you
could spot a sibling pretty easily once you'd met a couple of them.
They had a kind of family look - not identical, but close enough to
spot easily.

--
Cheryl

Richard Yates

2018-10-09 00:10:07 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 23:50:27 +0100, Katy Jennison

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc. --
do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight.

A couple of years ago, I visited the community where I grew up. As
walked along the road a car stopped and the driver said "You must be a
Yates". I did not recognize her, but she was a neighbor more than 50
years ago, and saw the resemblance in my stance and gait (which are
not unusual AFAIK).

Percival P. Cassidy

2018-10-09 14:47:27 UTC

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc. --
do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight.

Many years ago we visited the small town near where my mother had grown
up. On the Sunday evening we went to one of the churches -- not, as far
as I knew, the one where my mother had worshiped. After the service we
were talking to one of the locals, and I mentioned that my mother had
grown up around there. She took a closer look at me and said, "You're a
...," hitting the nail on the head.

Perce

Janet

2018-10-09 10:54:56 UTC

In article <ppgmvk$r5o$***@news.albasani.net>, ***@spamtrap.kjennison.com
says...

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc. --
do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight.

My father in law Oliver worked for the dairy board visiting farms all
around Essex; he died before our children were born.

30 years later our youngest son, a vet from Scotland locuming in
Essex, got called out to a farm. After attending to the beasts he was
invited into the kitchen for tea where doddery old man was parked in a
corner.

Old man "Morning Oliver, it's been a long time"

Farmer "You'll have to excuse dad, he's a bit wandered. This is the
locum vet, Dad; Matt from Scotland."

" Don't be daft it's Oliver Surname, the man from the dairy board."

Son "That's my grandfather's name".

Janet.

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-09 11:06:01 UTC

Post by Janet
says...

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc. --
do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight.

My father in law Oliver worked for the dairy board visiting farms all
around Essex; he died before our children were born.
30 years later our youngest son, a vet from Scotland locuming in
Essex, got called out to a farm. After attending to the beasts he was
invited into the kitchen for tea where doddery old man was parked in a
corner.
Old man "Morning Oliver, it's been a long time"
Farmer "You'll have to excuse dad, he's a bit wandered. This is the
locum vet, Dad; Matt from Scotland."
" Don't be daft it's Oliver Surname, the man from the dairy board."
Son "That's my grandfather's name".

The existence of fondly (mis)remembered anecdotes is not evidence of
a generality though it is a perfect example of human susceptibility to
confirmation bias. At no time did I say there were *no* children who
resembled a parent. But it simply is not the case that all, or a majority,
or even a substantial minority do. And actually that such anecdotes
are worth remembering is, in its way, confirmation of this. If children
truly did resemble their parents as a rule it would not be in the least
remarkable when someone recognised someone's family connection
in this way. It would be no more amazing than someone finding your
dwelling having been given your address!

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-09 12:10:17 UTC

Post by Janet
says...

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal Gurneyhalt

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a
married
woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked
more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be
suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc. --
do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first sight.

My father in law Oliver worked for the dairy board visiting farms all
around Essex; he died before our children were born.
30 years later our youngest son, a vet from Scotland locuming in
Essex, got called out to a farm. After attending to the beasts he was
invited into the kitchen for tea where doddery old man was parked in a
corner.
Old man "Morning Oliver, it's been a long time"
Farmer "You'll have to excuse dad, he's a bit wandered. This is the
locum vet, Dad; Matt from Scotland."
" Don't be daft it's Oliver Surname, the man from the dairy board."
Son "That's my grandfather's name".

How, exactly, would you go about demonstrating that?

(What criteria, even, would you propose for "degree of resemblance"?
Errors by facial recognition software?)

On Sunday, for want of anything else during that time-slot, I saw the
second half of *Dancing with the Stars Junior*. One of the child-
contestants is Stevie Wonder's son (his surname is not "Wonder.") There
is some resemblance in the face, but the voice is remarkably similar
(speaking, not singing). (Yes, he's passed puberty.) It is not a fluke
that some of the most successful singing groups comprise siblings.

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
And actually that such anecdotes
are worth remembering is, in its way, confirmation of this. If children
truly did resemble their parents as a rule it would not be in the least
remarkable when someone recognised someone's family connection
in this way. It would be no more amazing than someone finding your
dwelling having been given your address!

The anecdotes that have been given are about elapsed decades. You have no
information at all about how ordinary it is in ordinary circumstances for
a teacher, say, meeting a roomful of parents for the first time, to be
able to match the parents with the children (adoptions excluded).

occam

2018-10-09 11:02:14 UTC

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire
at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one
seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would
guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first
sight.

And using such F**** foul language, while at it. Struth!

Peter Moylan

2018-10-09 12:25:07 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a
woman came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a
street in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said
"You must be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my
mother since my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance
must have been pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on
accosting complete strangers in a completely different place.

It can depend on age. My daughter looked just like my sister when she
was a child, but now that she's an adult the resemblance has vanished away.

When I was a child the two eldest children (my brother and I) looked a
lot like each other, but the third son didn't seem to look like anyone
else in the family. Twenty years later, sons 2 and 3 were the spit and
image of each other, and I was the odd one out.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Cheryl

2018-10-09 12:46:49 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a
woman came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a
street in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said
"You must be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my
mother since my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance
must have been pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on
accosting complete strangers in a completely different place.

It can depend on age. My daughter looked just like my sister when she
was a child, but now that she's an adult the resemblance has vanished away.
When I was a child the two eldest children (my brother and I) looked a
lot like each other, but the third son didn't seem to look like anyone
else in the family. Twenty years later, sons 2 and 3 were the spit and
image of each other, and I was the odd one out.

Sometimes age or illness or other changes can accentuate a resemblance
that isn't otherwise visible. My brother, as a toddler, looked a lot
like my grandfather at the same age - but not at all as he grew up. The
resemblances among among my mother, one of her sisters, and their mother
came and went with age and weight changes. My mother and her siblings
fell into two camps, really (tall/dark/straight hair vs average (or
short)/fair/curly hair), and some of the characteristics were far more
marked than others. Some of my cousins resemble their fathers to a large
degree. One of my cousins, seeing me unexpectedly, said something like
"I looked across the room, and there was Grandmother!" I have a similar
build to our grandmother, although I'm taller (although still only
average height), but didn't get her curly hair and my - and my sibling's
- general coloration is more like our father's. No one ever thinks my
younger sister and I are siblings - she did get the curly hair, but got
the tall genes in the family.

--
Cheryl

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-09 13:58:29 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a
woman came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a
street in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said
"You must be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my
mother since my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance
must have been pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on
accosting complete strangers in a completely different place.

It can depend on age. My daughter looked just like my sister when she
was a child, but now that she's an adult the resemblance has vanished away.
When I was a child the two eldest children (my brother and I) looked a
lot like each other, but the third son didn't seem to look like anyone
else in the family. Twenty years later, sons 2 and 3 were the spit and
image of each other, and I was the odd one out.

My father and his two brothers (he was the middle one) could have almost
been triplets (I don't know how far apart in age they were; I never saw a
picture of their father). The only time I met my best friend's brothers
(both older) was at his funeral (age 19), and when I got to the place I
thought I was seeing him. (Leukemia. A kind that's now curable.)

Cheryl

2018-10-09 14:18:13 UTC

Post by Peter T. Daniels
My father and his two brothers (he was the middle one) could have almost
been triplets (I don't know how far apart in age they were; I never saw a
picture of their father). The only time I met my best friend's brothers
(both older) was at his funeral (age 19), and when I got to the place I
thought I was seeing him. (Leukemia. A kind that's now curable.)

Maybe the same kind that got one of my cousins at about 12. A generation
earlier, essentially all children with it died. My cousin had a 50/50
chance of survival. Nowadays, almost all children with that form of
leukemia survive. Sometimes, medicine does make dramatic progress,
although not in time to save everyone.

At the funeral of another cousin, whom I hadn't seen since he was about
5, I thought that I would have known him instantly if I'd met him as an
adult. In every single picture, he looked very much like his late
father. I'm much worse at identifying his sisters, although I'd met them
as adults from time to time. They have come up to me in the street,
calling me by name; and I'd have walked right by, not recognizing them.
They don't even look that much like each other to my eye, although the
youngest has a bit of the look of our mutual grandmother.

--
Cheryl

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-09 16:48:01 UTC

He's buried in a long line of boys killed in Vietnam, but without an
indication that he wasn't of their cohort. It's one of the cemeteries
along the Queens-Brooklyn border, where the ground was not suitable for
erecting buildings, at the peak of the glacial moraine. But I don't know
which one.

Post by Cheryl
At the funeral of another cousin, whom I hadn't seen since he was about
5, I thought that I would have known him instantly if I'd met him as an
adult. In every single picture, he looked very much like his late
father. I'm much worse at identifying his sisters, although I'd met them
as adults from time to time. They have come up to me in the street,
calling me by name; and I'd have walked right by, not recognizing them.
They don't even look that much like each other to my eye, although the
youngest has a bit of the look of our mutual grandmother.

I only rarely see my cousin's son Zeke. When the family gathered for his
grandmother's 100th birthday party, I mistook him for his youngest uncle
(the youngest of the four brothers), whom I see even less often because
he lives in Tennessee (or North Carolina?). (Folks combined his daughter's
wedding with an eclipse-viewing party.) But it's that youngest brother
who has made the arrangements for all of us to attend her interment at
Arlington at the end of this month, nearly 11 months after her death; and
then it's on a Saturday when, he says, not as much pomp and circumstance
are available as on a weekday. (He's putting us up at the Ritz-Carlton,
for goodness' sake!)

occam

2018-10-09 14:31:15 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a
woman came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a
street in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said
"You must be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my
mother since my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance
must have been pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on
accosting complete strangers in a completely different place.

It can depend on age. My daughter looked just like my sister when she
was a child, but now that she's an adult the resemblance has vanished away.
When I was a child the two eldest children (my brother and I) looked a
lot like each other, but the third son didn't seem to look like anyone
else in the family. Twenty years later, sons 2 and 3 were the spit and
image of each other, and I was the odd one out.

<tongue-in-cheek> May I suggest an explanation? You all acquired
different pets, and your brothers' pets looked more alike than yours.
They do say owners begin to look like their pets... </tongue in cheek>

RHDraney

2018-10-09 16:10:58 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
It can depend on age. My daughter looked just like my sister when she
was a child, but now that she's an adult the resemblance has vanished away.
When I was a child the two eldest children (my brother and I) looked a
lot like each other, but the third son didn't seem to look like anyone
else in the family. Twenty years later, sons 2 and 3 were the spit and
image of each other, and I was the odd one out.

It's a good job none of you became a missing child...the "age progressed
image" they put in the alerts would never have matched up....

There's a picture of my brother with my niece (age about ten or so)
wrapped around his chest after two family groups met up at the Grand
Canyon one summer...my girlfriend at the time took one look at it and
said "you can sure see they're related"....

Amanda is the daughter of my stepsister...she and her uncle Mike weren't
related at all when Amanda was born....r

Tony Cooper

2018-10-09 17:02:40 UTC

Post by RHDraney

It's a good job none of you became a missing child...the "age progressed
image" they put in the alerts would never have matched up....
There's a picture of my brother with my niece (age about ten or so)
wrapped around his chest after two family groups met up at the Grand
Canyon one summer...my girlfriend at the time took one look at it and
said "you can sure see they're related"....
Amanda is the daughter of my stepsister...she and her uncle Mike weren't
related at all when Amanda was born....r

Neither our son nor our daughter is recognizable visually as a
descendent of ours. Our daughter, though, could be a twin sister of
one of her cousins. He is the son of one of my wife's brothers.

It is with great relief that we note that neither my son, daughter, or
my grandsons inherited my nose.

My brother is coming here from Denmark for a visit next week. He and
I look nothing alike, but he does resemble our mother. His sons also
resemble her. He is also fortunate that whatever nose genes that I
possess eluded him.

Those genes came to me from my father, but exploded between the two
generations.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-09 17:46:32 UTC

Post by RHDraney

It's a good job none of you became a missing child...the "age
progressed image" they put in the alerts would never have matched up....
There's a picture of my brother with my niece (age about ten or so)
wrapped around his chest after two family groups met up at the Grand
Canyon one summer...my girlfriend at the time took one look at it and
said "you can sure see they're related"....
Amanda is the daughter of my stepsister...she and her uncle Mike
weren't related at all when Amanda was born....r

Maybe, but even before seeing the ....r at the end I was sure who had
written that.

--
athel

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-09 17:44:48 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a
woman came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a
street in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and said
"You must be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not seen my
mother since my mother was a child in Cambridge. The resemblance
must have been pretty striking for her to have taken a chance on
accosting complete strangers in a completely different place.

It can depend on age. My daughter looked just like my sister when she
was a child, but now that she's an adult the resemblance has vanished away.
When I was a child the two eldest children (my brother and I) looked a
lot like each other, but the third son didn't seem to look like anyone
else in the family. Twenty years later, sons 2 and 3 were the spit and
image of each other, and I was the odd one out.

Neither of my sisters looks much like me, or much like one another, but
we all have characteristics in common with our father. Apart from
having more hair I look very like my father when he was my age.

--
athel

LFS

2018-10-09 15:51:22 UTC

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire
at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one
seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would
guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first
sight.

On Daughter's first day at middle school, age nine, she came home and
said she had a new best friend called Louise and Louise's mummy knew me.
Hardly surprising perhaps except that Louise's mummy had been at school
with me, not in my class and not a close friend, hadn't seen me for
thirty years, but looked at Daughter and immediately knew whose daughter
she must be.

Daughter looks nothing like me.

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-09 16:49:47 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire
at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one
seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would
guess that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first
sight.

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-09 17:48:05 UTC

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 12:02:53 PM UTC-4, Madrigal Gurneyhalt>

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal> >>>>>

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a>

Post by Richard Yates
married

woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked>

Post by HVS
more like

a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be>

Post by HVS
suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film> >>
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an> >>
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a

fire> >> at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no>
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one> >>

seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
guess that.

So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at

first> >> sight.

When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a woman>

came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a

street> > in the middle of London (I don't remember precisely), and
said "You must> > be A*** S****'s daughters!" We were. She had not
seen my mother since> > my mother was a child in Cambridge. The
resemblance must have been> > pretty striking for her to have taken a
chance on accosting complete> > strangers in a completely different
place.

On Daughter's first day at middle school, age nine, she came home and>
said she had a new best friend called Louise and Louise's mummy knew
me.> Hardly surprising perhaps except that Louise's mummy had been at
school> with me, not in my class and not a close friend, hadn't seen me
for> thirty years, but looked at Daughter and immediately knew whose
daughter> she must be.
Daughter looks nothing like me.

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

It seems perfectly clear to me.

--
athel

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-09 18:03:26 UTC

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 12:02:53 PM UTC-4, Madrigal Gurneyhalt>

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal> >>>>>

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a>

Post by Richard Yates
married

woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked>

Post by HVS
more like

a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be>

Post by HVS
suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a

fire> >> at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no>
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one> >>

seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
guess that.

So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at

first> >> sight.

When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a woman>

came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

It seems perfectly clear to me.

Yet another claim that a child resembles the parent at the parent's age.

A mother is hardly in a position to recognize the similarity with her
daughter at their present ages!

I think all the assertions we've had of non-resemblance of offspring have
been self-reports. As I mentioned earlier, let's see what facial recognition
software comes up with.

LFS

2018-10-10 07:28:00 UTC

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 12:02:53 PM UTC-4, Madrigal Gurneyhalt>

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal> >>>>>

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a>

Post by Richard Yates
married

woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked>

Post by HVS
more like

a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be>

Post by HVS
suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a

fire> >> at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no>
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one> >>

seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
guess that.

So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at

first> >> sight.

When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a woman>

came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

It seems perfectly clear to me.

Yet another claim that a child resembles the parent at the parent's age.

?

Louise's mother did not know me at nine years old. The resemblance she
spotted was apparently far more subtle, to do with mannerisms perhaps,
but was immediately obvious on being introduced to Daughter. I was
nowhere in the vicinity and there was no reason for any memory of me to
be uppermost in the mind of Louise's mother. She was as astonished as I
was that the resemblance was so clear to her.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
A mother is hardly in a position to recognize the similarity with her
daughter at their present ages!

I find this statement quite baffling. Parents are surely the best placed
people to spot similarities and dissimilarities with their children.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I think all the assertions we've had of non-resemblance of offspring have
been self-reports. As I mentioned earlier, let's see what facial recognition
software comes up with.

I am confident that facial recognition software would not match my face
with Daughter's. We do not look at all alike.

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

HVS

2018-10-10 10:31:10 UTC

[snip]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Yet another claim that a child resembles the parent at the parent's age.

?
Louise's mother did not know me at nine years old. The resemblance she
spotted was apparently far more subtle, to do with mannerisms perhaps,
but was immediately obvious on being introduced to Daughter. I was
nowhere in the vicinity and there was no reason for any memory of me to
be uppermost in the mind of Louise's mother. She was as astonished as I
was that the resemblance was so clear to her.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
A mother is hardly in a position to recognize the similarity with her
daughter at their present ages!

I find this statement quite baffling. Parents are surely the best placed
people to spot similarities and dissimilarities with their children.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I think all the assertions we've had of non-resemblance of offspring
have been self-reports. As I mentioned earlier, let's see what facial
recognition software comes up with.

I am confident that facial recognition software would not match my face
with Daughter's. We do not look at all alike.

On a somewhat similar subject, there's a report today of a study which
estimates that humans appear to be able to recognise something in the order
of 5,000 different faces.

http://tinyurl.com/yccl5ymz

which points to:

http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%
2Fscience%2F2018%2Foct%2F10%2Fhow-many-faces-average-person-recognises-5000

I found it interesting that "people are surprisingly bad at checking a real
face against a photo ID", which might suggest that facial recognition
software may prove to be more reliable than passport-inspecting immigration
officers.

There was also this comment about overkill: "Given the social lives of our
ancestors, the ability to recognise thousands of individuals might seem like
overkill, said Rob Jenkins, a psychologist at University of York and co-
author on the study. But there are plenty of examples of overkill in nature.
The venom of some spiders can kill a horse, even though the spider presumably
has no ambitions to eat the horse.

The spider venom point is undoubtedly an old issue -- there's bound to be a
whole sub-sector of evolutionary science dealing with why species "over-
evolve" that sort of trait -- but I hadn't thought of it before.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng (30yrs) and BrEng (34yrs), indiscriminately mixed

Richard Tobin

2018-10-10 14:51:02 UTC

Quite likely. There is a famous paper called "What the frog's eye tell
the frog's brain" (Lettvin et al. (1959) Proc. Inst. Radio Engrs. 47,
1940-1951). It argues that the brain does _not_ store an image of
everything the frog can respond to. The information from the eye acts
as a stimulus as to what the frog should do next. There is nothing
special about frogs in this: it applies just as much to Laura's
daughter's friend's mother.

It's said that some people with a "photographic" memory can fuse one
half of a random dot stereogram against the remembered other half.
If that's true they must be storing something very like an image.

-- Richard

occam

2018-10-10 15:08:18 UTC

There is a scene like that in "Angels and Demons" starring Tom Hanks.

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-10 16:54:31 UTC

There is a scene like that in "Angels and Demons" starring Tom Hanks.

Well that about wraps it up for that theory then!

Madrigal Gurneyhalt

2018-10-10 16:53:55 UTC

If that's true I'm a fish called Wanda!

Jerry Friedman

2018-10-10 17:21:38 UTC

It's said that some people with a "photographic" memory can fuse one
half of a random dot stereogram against the remembered other half.

My goodness!

Can people even fuse the two halves if they're not in the right
positions relative to each other?

Post by Richard Tobin
If that's true they must be storing something very like an image.

But obviously some people can store pretty good images, since some people
can paint things from memory.

--
Jerry Friedman

Rich Ulrich

2018-10-10 19:35:12 UTC

On Wed, 10 Oct 2018 10:21:38 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Friedman

It's said that some people with a "photographic" memory can fuse one
half of a random dot stereogram against the remembered other half.

My goodness!
Can people even fuse the two halves if they're not in the right
positions relative to each other?

As I remember a Scientific American article from probably
50 years ago, there were subjects who could, in memory,
combine one random dot stereogram with either of two
alternatives that produced different pictures.

I don't remember whether they tried rotations.

Post by Richard Tobin
If that's true they must be storing something very like an image.

But obviously some people can store pretty good images, since some people
can paint things from memory.

--
Rich Ulrich

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-11 08:39:22 UTC

Post by Rich Ulrich
On Wed, 10 Oct 2018 10:21:38 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Friedman

It's said that some people with a "photographic" memory can fuse one
half of a random dot stereogram against the remembered other half.

My goodness!
Can people even fuse the two halves if they're not in the right
positions relative to each other?

It's not the same thing, I know, but some time in the 1970s I saw an
article that claimed that all you needed to reconstruct an image was
some connectivity information. To illustrate it they showed a picture
drawn by their computer generated by telling it which French
départements (of l'Hexagone, only) had borders with which others, and,
they said, nothing else. The result looked remarkably like the map of
France. However, they neglected to mention a number of relevant points:
apart from the ones around Paris all the départements are much the same
size and none of them have very weird shapes, and France itself has an
unusually regular shape. In addition, they cheated with the orientation
and left-right symmetry.

I tried it (by hand) for some geographical entities that don't have
those characteristics, like the countries of North and South America
(treating Alaska as a country). The result wasn't remotely
recognizable, probably not even if you knew that it represented
countries and that Brazil has borders with a great many others.

It probably wouldn't even work for Liechtenstein, because although the
country itself has a straightforward shape the borders between
municipalities look like what a heavily gerrymandered state of the USA
would look like if the people who drew the boundaries were allowed to
have enclaves wherever it suited them.

Post by Rich Ulrich

Post by Richard Tobin
If that's true they must be storing something very like an image.

But obviously some people can store pretty good images, since some people
can paint things from memory.

--
athel

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-11 11:35:51 UTC

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
It's not the same thing, I know, but some time in the 1970s I saw an
article that claimed that all you needed to reconstruct an image was
some connectivity information. To illustrate it they showed a picture
drawn by their computer generated by telling it which French
départements (of l'Hexagone, only) had borders with which others, and,
they said, nothing else. The result looked remarkably like the map of
apart from the ones around Paris all the départements are much the same
size and none of them have very weird shapes, and France itself has an
unusually regular shape. In addition, they cheated with the orientation
and left-right symmetry.
I tried it (by hand) for some geographical entities that don't have
those characteristics, like the countries of North and South America
(treating Alaska as a country). The result wasn't remotely
recognizable, probably not even if you knew that it represented
countries and that Brazil has borders with a great many others.

A technique regularly used in cartograms, which create rectangles (usually)
whose area is proportional to whichever quantity is being studied -- the
simplest kind would simply be area, but e.g. population is a popular one.
Asia has two enormous ones with a couple of tiny slivers in between, and
lots of others around the edges.

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
It probably wouldn't even work for Liechtenstein, because although the
country itself has a straightforward shape the borders between
municipalities look like what a heavily gerrymandered state of the USA
would look like if the people who drew the boundaries were allowed to
have enclaves wherever it suited them.

RHDraney

2018-10-11 15:15:34 UTC

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
It's not the same thing, I know, but some time in the 1970s I saw an
article that claimed that all you needed to reconstruct an image was
some connectivity information. To illustrate it they showed a picture
drawn by their computer generated by telling it which French
départements (of l'Hexagone, only) had borders with which others, and,
they said, nothing else. The result looked remarkably like the map of
apart from the ones around Paris all the départements are much the same
size and none of them have very weird shapes, and France itself has an
unusually regular shape. In addition, they cheated with the orientation
and left-right symmetry.
I tried it (by hand) for some geographical entities that don't have
those characteristics, like the countries of North and South America
(treating Alaska as a country). The result wasn't remotely recognizable,
probably not even if you knew that it represented countries and that
Brazil has borders with a great many others.
It probably wouldn't even work for Liechtenstein, because although the
country itself has a straightforward shape the borders between
municipalities look like what a heavily gerrymandered state of the USA
would look like if the people who drew the boundaries were allowed to
have enclaves wherever it suited them.

I don't remember if it was here or somewhere else, but some years back I
wondered whether there were any actual country or other well-defined
political area whose geographic center lay outside the country
itself...it's not hard to invent such shapes in pure geometry, but I
wanted a real-world instance...as countries go I was thinking of skinny
concave things like Laos...(besides not remembering whether it was in
this newsgroup or not, I don't recall if we ever came up with a positive
example)....r

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-11 15:56:09 UTC

Post by RHDraney
I don't remember if it was here or somewhere else, but some years back I
wondered whether there were any actual country or other well-defined
political area whose geographic center lay outside the country
itself...it's not hard to invent such shapes in pure geometry, but I
wanted a real-world instance...as countries go I was thinking of skinny
concave things like Laos...(besides not remembering whether it was in
this newsgroup or not, I don't recall if we ever came up with a positive
example)....r

Senegal's might be in Gambia. Malaysia might be tricky, depending on things
like how much of the ocean some of the neighbors lay claim to.

Quinn C

2018-10-11 16:52:11 UTC

Senegal's might be in Gambia.

Nah, Gambia is clearly south of the center.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Malaysia might be tricky, depending on things
like how much of the ocean some of the neighbors lay claim to.

Non-contiguous countries are a bitch.

Vietnam, Japan (four main islands) and Croatia, yes. Probably Norway,
too.

Italy (with Sicily), probably not - the rectangle-based center is near
Rome, but seems further inwards.

Thailand is a candidate, the center being near Pattaya, but hard to say
whether on land or sea.

Tajikistan and Zambia look like near misses of the Croatia type
(cut-out near the center.)

Eritrea maybe.

--
In the old days, the complaints about the passing of the
golden age were much more sophisticated.
-- James Hogg in alt.usage.english

Tak To

2018-10-11 22:29:16 UTC

Google and ye shall find

http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services1.arcgis.com/4TXrdeWh0RyCqPgB/ArcGIS/rest/services/Centroids_of_all_countries/FeatureServer/0&source=sd

----- -----

The answers below are based on the Arcgis site. I cannot vouch for
their accuracy. Also, the site seems to exclude all "oversea
territories" such as Greenland or the French Guiana.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Senegal's might be in Gambia.

Nah, Gambia is clearly south of the center.

Correct.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Malaysia might be tricky, depending on things
like how much of the ocean some of the neighbors lay claim to.

Non-contiguous countries are a bitch.

It is actually on land and in Malaysia (in the state of
Sarawak).

Post by Quinn C
Vietnam, Japan (four main islands) and Croatia, yes. Probably Norway,
too.

Vietnam - no. It is very near Da Nang. Japan - no.
Croatia - no. Norway - no.

Also, Indonesia - no (on the island of Sulawesi), Panama
- no. Chile - no.

OTOH, UK - yes, Phlippines - yes.

Canada - no but very near the edge of Hudson Bay.

Post by Quinn C
Italy (with Sicily), probably not - the rectangle-based center is near
Rome, but seems further inwards.

No, it's about midway between Rome and San Marino.

Post by Quinn C
Thailand is a candidate, the center being near Pattaya, but hard to say
whether on land or sea.

North of Bangkok, nowhere near Pattaya.

Post by Quinn C
Tajikistan and Zambia look like near misses of the Croatia type
(cut-out near the center.)

Tajikistan - no. Zambia - no but very close to the border.

Post by Quinn C
Eritrea maybe.

No, actually very near Asmara.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-11 16:58:06 UTC

Senegal's might be in Gambia.

Gambia's too thin to have anything much inside it.

Panama's another possibility.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Malaysia might be tricky, depending on things
like how much of the ocean some of the neighbors lay claim to.

--
athel

Quinn C

2018-10-11 16:54:00 UTC

One thing that definitely has a place in this group is the definition
of geographical center. I can give three reasonable ones immediately:

- The center of the smallest rectangle containing the whole country.
- The center of the smallest circle containing the whole country.
- The center of gravity of a homogeneous plate with the shape of the
country and equal thickness.

For most countries, the three aren't very far from each other, but
there are exceptions.

--
Everyone gets one personality tic that's then expanded into an
entire character, in the same way that a balloon with a smiley
face will look like a person if at some point you just stop
caring. -- David Berry, NatPost (on the cast of Criminal Minds)

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-11 18:40:44 UTC

One thing that definitely has a place in this group is the definition
- The center of the smallest rectangle containing the whole country.
- The center of the smallest circle containing the whole country.
- The center of gravity of a homogeneous plate with the shape of the
country and equal thickness.

This last seems the most natural to me.

Post by Quinn C
For most countries, the three aren't very far from each other, but
there are exceptions.

--
athel

J. J. Lodder

2018-10-11 19:31:28 UTC

Some of the island states in the Pacific will do.

Post by Quinn C
One thing that definitely has a place in this group is the definition
- The center of the smallest rectangle containing the whole country.
- The center of the smallest circle containing the whole country.
- The center of gravity of a homogeneous plate with the shape of the
country and equal thickness.

This last seems the most natural to me.

But it will depend on the chosen map projection,
for larger countries at least, unless you cut up a globe,

Jan

Quinn C

2018-10-11 21:36:33 UTC

This last seems the most natural to me.

There are several other definitions, which I find less convincing:

- Intersection of a line linking the northernmost to the southernmost
point and one linking the westernmost and the easternmost one, no right
angle required.
- Greatest minimum distance from any point external.
- Greatest average distance from any point external - this one's hard
to calculate; depends on resolution.
- Geometric center of the surface respecting elevation.

--
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts
agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer
professionals. We cause accidents.
Nathaniel Borenstein

Disclaimer: I, Quinn, don't believe computer professionals cause
accidents at a far higher rate than other professionals

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-11 19:50:05 UTC

Do you have any reason to believe that any but the last has ever been
used by geographers?

Post by Quinn C
For most countries, the three aren't very far from each other, but
there are exceptions.

Quinn C

2018-10-11 21:36:32 UTC

Do you have any reason to believe that any but the last has ever been
used by geographers?

Each of the above and other methods have been used by various places in
Germany to claim being the center.

The one that claims it based on the first method above has the backing
of one professor of geodesy.
One method not in the above (which takes elevation into account) is
certified by an institute of geodesy.

--
Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated
until sometime after those creating it have left the organization.

Disclaimer: I, Quinn, don't believe all strategy is like that

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-11 16:55:17 UTC

[ ... ]
I don't remember if it was here or somewhere else, but some years back
I wondered whether there were any actual country or other well-defined
political area whose geographic center lay outside the country
itself...it's not hard to invent such shapes in pure geometry, but I
wanted a real-world instance...as countries go I was thinking of skinny
concave things like Laos...(besides not remembering whether it was in
this newsgroup or not, I don't recall if we ever came up with a
positive example)....r

I remember that we discussed it but I don't know what the outcome was.
It's the sort of thing Mark Brader will remember. Croatia would be my
best bet, and looking at in on the map (but without cutting it out and
balancing it) it must surely have its geographical centre in Bosnia and
Herzogovina. Japan, Somalia, Vietnam and Chile might make it. Your Laos
too, of course, but I feel fairly confident that Croatia would make the
most clear-cut example (shaped liked a boomerang is how I usually
describe it).

--
athel

Jerry Friedman

2018-10-11 18:42:39 UTC

For some of those it will depend on how territorial waters are counted.

--
Jerry Friedman

Jerry Friedman

2018-10-11 14:20:48 UTC

Post by Rich Ulrich
On Wed, 10 Oct 2018 10:21:38 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Friedman

It's said that some people with a "photographic" memory can fuse one
half of a random dot stereogram against the remembered other half.

My goodness!
Can people even fuse the two halves if they're not in the right
positions relative to each other?

...

That's ridiculous (but maybe true).

--
Jerry Friedman

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-10 12:54:18 UTC

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 12:02:53 PM UTC-4, Madrigal Gurneyhalt>

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 10:06:03 AM UTC-4, Madrigal> >>>>>

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

How would they be indentified as bastards if they were born to a>

Post by Richard Yates
married

woman? Before blood grouping and DNA testing the chances of a husband
proving that a child was not his own appear somewhat limited.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked>

Post by HVS
more like

a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be>

Post by HVS
suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a

fire> >> at the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no>
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one> >>

seeing them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
guess that.

So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.>

Post by Madrigal Gurneyhalt
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at

first> >> sight.

When I was, oh, probably about ten, and my sister five or six, a woman>

came up to us out of the blue, when we were somewhere such as a

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

It seems perfectly clear to me.

Yet another claim that a child resembles the parent at the parent's age.

?
Louise's mother did not know me at nine years old. The resemblance she
spotted was apparently far more subtle, to do with mannerisms perhaps,
but was immediately obvious on being introduced to Daughter. I was
nowhere in the vicinity and there was no reason for any memory of me to
be uppermost in the mind of Louise's mother. She was as astonished as I
was that the resemblance was so clear to her.

A thirty-year gap is long enough for there to have been significant
changes.

I guess I don't know how old one is when one is "at school" with someone.
That says "child" to me.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
A mother is hardly in a position to recognize the similarity with her
daughter at their present ages!

I find this statement quite baffling. Parents are surely the best placed
people to spot similarities and dissimilarities with their children.

Of course they aren't. The more familiar something is, the less its
details register. This has been demonstrated with neonates, in fact.

I am confident that facial recognition software would not match my face
with Daughter's. We do not look at all alike.

Then clearly, as you said, "recognition" is not based solely on physical
features.

Jerry Friedman

2018-10-10 17:27:44 UTC

...

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

It seems perfectly clear to me.

Yet another claim that a child resembles the parent at the parent's age.

?
Louise's mother did not know me at nine years old. The resemblance she
spotted was apparently far more subtle, to do with mannerisms perhaps,

Or voice?

Post by LFS
but was immediately obvious on being introduced to Daughter. I was
nowhere in the vicinity and there was no reason for any memory of me to
be uppermost in the mind of Louise's mother. She was as astonished as I
was that the resemblance was so clear to her.

...

I am confident that facial recognition software would not match my face
with Daughter's. We do not look at all alike.

You'd need relationship-recognition software, which I've never heard
of. That would be based on some sort of knowledge (maybe only as
gained by training, as they do with neural nets) of what is hereditary
in facial appearance and how it combines with heredity from the other
parent and with other factors.

--
Jerry Friedman

LFS

2018-10-11 08:11:06 UTC

Post by Jerry Friedman
...

Somehow that sentence doesn't match the rest of the story.

It seems perfectly clear to me.

Yet another claim that a child resembles the parent at the parent's age.

?
Louise's mother did not know me at nine years old. The resemblance she
spotted was apparently far more subtle, to do with mannerisms perhaps,

Or voice?

Possibly although at nine Daughter had quite a pronounced Oxfordshire
accent which I never had.

...

I am confident that facial recognition software would not match my face
with Daughter's. We do not look at all alike.

I think that recognising resemblance is complex and subtle. Doing it
over a lengthy time lapse remains, to me, very remarkable.

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-09 01:49:28 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Children generally tend to resemble their parents. One that looked more like
a friend (or employee) of the family than like the husband might be suspect.

Actually children generally *don't* resemble their parents and despite

Actually they do.

By chance I'm reading this during a commercial break in the film
L'Empreinte de l'Ange (I think it appeared in English as Mark of an
Angel), with Catherine Frot as a woman who sees a young girl that she
rapidly becomes convinced is her daughter, supposedly died in a fire at
the maternity hospital seven years earlier, a few hours old.
When I consider how utterly different from one another in every way my
twin grandchildren are I find this premise implausible. There is no
possible doubt that the twins are brother and sister, but no one seeing
them or otherwise interacting with them without a context would guess
that.
So yes, closely related people -- mother and daughter; siblings, etc.
-- do resemble each other, but it isn't necessarily obvious at first
sight.

Hence "generally tend to." Maddie seems to be turning into Cooper -- this
isn't the first time.

Janet

2018-10-08 16:22:49 UTC

OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

He'd know when he last had sex with the mother.

During 2 world wars, many service men came home to find a baby that
could not have been fathered by the absent husband. My grandparents were
among them. They decided to keep the baby and raise it as his, and faked
the birth registration to cover up the discrepancy.

Janet.

Post by occam
I have no idea of the relative incidence of those two cases, although I
suspect that someone must have looked into it.

J. J. Lodder

2018-10-08 19:18:16 UTC

-did-it_2.shtml

Post by occam
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain

In AmE usage, "bastard" has lost all of its sense of "born of
unmarried parents". That sense is known, but archaic (along with the
question.)
And, aside from the word applied to it, the state itself is also
unremarkable. It accounts for nearly 50% of UK births.

Wouldn't that be unmarried mothers then?

Post by occam
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.

Having been on crusade was a strong argument.

Jan

Cheryl

2018-10-08 14:39:17 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
That statistic is, I imagine, because of the large number of unmarried
mothers. (I don't know the answer for my own country, but I should look
it up.) That's not quite what happened in past generations. As I
-- children of serving maids who were impregnated by their employers;
-- children of married women who were having an affair with someone
not their husband.
I have no idea of the relative incidence of those two cases, although I
suspect that someone must have looked into it.

Technically speaking, children of married women weren't bastards, even
if their husband wasn't their father. Historically, at any rate, the
husband was assumed legally to be the father even when it was fairly
obvious he wasn't. There must have been some legal out if the husband
wanted to repudiate the child, but I don't remember reading about that.

A great many historical bastards were children of unmarried women and
their lovers, who were not necessarily their employers. At some times
and in some places no one worried too much if the (usually young) couple
were planning on marrying and actually did so before the birth. Other
times, it was more of a taboo - or the father died, or ran off or
something instead of marrying the mother. In local records it's nearly
impossible to identify the biological father of such children -
birth/baptismal records almost always recorded only the mother's name,
and the child could show up later in census records in a family that
informally adopted him, and listed as anything from "son" to "adopted
son" to "nephew" (or other relationship). Sometimes different
relationships were given in different censuses. I don't think local
families worried all that much about exact relationships in such cases.
Modern genealogists sometimes use DNA to get hints of possible
relationships.

--
Cheryl

HVS

2018-10-08 13:45:57 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we
-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

I'd say that in respect of individuals, just the one, as the legitimate
offspring of an illegitimate parent is, well, legitimate.

But in the case of families, inheritance, and descent, it's more like
"never" -- the line of descent from an illegitimate child remains
illegitimate, even if they're acknowledged, armigerous, and their heraldic
device includes a bend sinister.[1]

[1] Bit of a minor pet peeve. In heraldry -- and in spite of Sir Walter
Scott and common usage -- there's no such thing as a "bar sinister", as
that's a technical impossibility.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng (30yrs) and BrEng (34yrs), indiscriminately mixed

Athel Cornish-Bowden

2018-10-08 14:34:37 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we
-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

I'd say that in respect of individuals, just the one, as the legitimate
offspring of an illegitimate parent is, well, legitimate.
But in the case of families, inheritance, and descent, it's more like
"never" -- the line of descent from an illegitimate child remains
illegitimate, even if they're acknowledged, armigerous, and their heraldic
device includes a bend sinister.[1]
[1] Bit of a minor pet peeve. In heraldry -- and in spite of Sir Walter
Scott and common usage -- there's no such thing as a "bar sinister", as
that's a technical impossibility.

A logical one, as well, as a bar has sinister-dexter symmetry, so it
looks exactly the same whether you draw it from sinister to dexter or
from dexter to sinister. I was impressed to see that you had it correct
before I read your footnote.

--
athel

Peter T. Daniels

2018-10-08 15:32:00 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we
-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

I'd say that in respect of individuals, just the one, as the legitimate
offspring of an illegitimate parent is, well, legitimate.
But in the case of families, inheritance, and descent, it's more like
"never" -- the line of descent from an illegitimate child remains
illegitimate, even if they're acknowledged, armigerous, and their heraldic
device includes a bend sinister.[1]
[1] Bit of a minor pet peeve. In heraldry -- and in spite of Sir Walter
Scott and common usage -- there's no such thing as a "bar sinister", as
that's a technical impossibility.

Though the standard heraldry manuals tell you that Bend Sinister was not
in fact usually included in a blazon. There were devices for distinguishing
illegitimate sons, but that wasn't one of them (not least because it's too
intrusive on the design!).

occam

2018-10-08 18:01:18 UTC

Post by occam
In a BBC TV program titled 'Who do you think you are', Boris Johnson -
the potential future of Prime Minister of the UK - traces his genes to
King George II of Great Britain and Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/new-stories/boris-johnson/how-we
-did-it_2.shtml
OK, there is a kink in the genealogy. His lineage includes a certain
Caroline de Pfeffel, an actress who bore a bastard son to a(nother)
forgettable member of nobility.
How many generations does it take to shake off the label 'bastard'?

Interesting. There's the solution for Boris - devise a heraldic device
for his family.

Post by HVS
[1] Bit of a minor pet peeve. In heraldry -- and in spite of Sir Walter
Scott and common usage -- there's no such thing as a "bar sinister", as
that's a technical impossibility.

Janet

2018-10-08 14:36:30 UTC

Surely it was shaken off when inheritance law stopped making any
distinction over which side of the blanket childen were conceived or
born.

Janet.

Cheryl

2018-10-08 17:29:37 UTC

Post by Janet

Surely it was shaken off when inheritance law stopped making any
distinction over which side of the blanket childen were conceived or
born.

Labels are not necessarily applied only when they have legal meaning.

--
Cheryl

the Omrud

2018-10-08 16:04:52 UTC

None at all. Nobody cares and the term is now meaningless under UK law.

--
David

Jerry Friedman

2018-10-08 17:07:16 UTC

None at all. Nobody cares and the term is now meaningless under UK law.

How does that work for inheriting titles of nobility?

--
Jerry Friedman

Bart Dinnissen

2018-10-09 16:50:54 UTC

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 10:07:16 -0700 (PDT), in alt.usage.english Jerry Friedman

None at all. Nobody cares and the term is now meaningless under UK law.

How does that work for inheriting titles of nobility?

"You know nothing, John Snow".

--
Bart Dinnissen

Jerry Friedman

2018-10-09 17:29:35 UTC

Post by Bart Dinnissen
On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 10:07:16 -0700 (PDT), in alt.usage.english Jerry Friedman

None at all. Nobody cares and the term is now meaningless under UK law.

How does that work for inheriting titles of nobility?

"You know nothing, John Snow".

/A Song of Ice and Fire/, right?

--
Jerry Friedman

musika

2018-10-09 17:49:45 UTC

Post by Bart Dinnissen
On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 10:07:16 -0700 (PDT), in alt.usage.english Jerry Friedman

None at all. Nobody cares and the term is now meaningless under UK law.

How does that work for inheriting titles of nobility?

"You know nothing, John Snow".

/A Song of Ice and Fire/, right?

It is, but should be spelt Jon.

--
Ray
UK

Ross

2018-10-08 19:38:54 UTC

In Namibia there are people who have proudly called themselves
"Basters" for quite a few generations now. Of course it probably started
from the extended sense of "offspring of interracial union", and now it's
just the name of an ethnic group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baster

Mark Brader

2018-10-09 08:36:59 UTC

Post by Ross
In Namibia there are people who have proudly called themselves
"Basters" for quite a few generations now. Of course it probably started
from the extended sense of "offspring of interracial union", and now it's
just the name of an ethnic group.

I am reminded Oklahoma's decision to be officially nicknamed[1] the
"Sooner State".

This refers to the process of giving away unowned[2] land to settlers.
A region of land would be closed to public access until a certain date
and time, then whoever was first to arrive[3] at a particular lot could
claim ownership.

Well, sooners were the people who cheated the others by entering the
region of land while it was still closed. A fine thing to commemorate!

[1] Yes, US states have official nicknames.
[2] That is, taken from the "Indian" tribes.
[3] There may have been some additional requirements; I don't know
the details. I believe that if they didn't make use of the land
within a certain number of months it became unowned again.

--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Astronauts practice landing on laptops"
***@vex.net | --Ft. Myers, FL, News-Press, March 13, 1994

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Sam Plusnet

2018-10-09 17:55:10 UTC

Post by Mark Brader

I am reminded Oklahoma's decision to be officially nicknamed[1] the
"Sooner State".
This refers to the process of giving away unowned[2] land to settlers.
A region of land would be closed to public access until a certain date
and time, then whoever was first to arrive[3] at a particular lot could
claim ownership.
Well, sooners were the people who cheated the others by entering the
region of land while it was still closed. A fine thing to commemorate!
[1] Yes, US states have official nicknames.
[2] That is, taken from the "Indian" tribes.
[3] There may have been some additional requirements; I don't know
the details. I believe that if they didn't make use of the land
within a certain number of months it became unowned again.

Which reminds me of Liverpool's bus pass "Twerlies".

--
Sam Plusnet

occam

2018-10-10 08:22:23 UTC