Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) | Page 7

uncle," as
distinguished from the general term "uncle." The phrase "first cousin"
covers no less than eight specific kinships (four male and four female),
not taking the issue of mixed marriages into account. Specific kinships
are briefly expressed by a nomenclature in which fa, me, bro, si, son,
da, Hu, Wi, stand respectively for father, mother, brother, sister, son,
daughter, Husband, Wife. Each of these syllables is supposed to have
the possessive _'s_ added to it whenever it is followed by another
syllable of the set, or by the word is when it is not. _Example_: Let the
person from whom the kinships are reckoned be called P, and let Q and
R be two of _P_'s kinsfolk, described respectively as fa bro and me si
son. That means that _P's father's brother_ is Q, and that _P's mother's

sister's son_ is R. It is a simple and easily intelligible nomenclature, and
replaces intolerable verbiage in the description of distant kinships. My
correspondents used it freely, and none of them spoke of any difficulty
in understanding it. Its somewhat babyish sound is soon disregarded.
TABLE IV.--ABBREVIATIONS.
_________________________________________________________
_____________ | | | | Males. | Females. |
|_________________________________|_______________________
_____________| | | | | Grandfather, paternal fa fa | Grandmother,
paternal fa me | | " maternal me fa | " maternal me me | | Father fa |
Mother me | | Uncle, paternal fa bro | Aunt, paternal fa si | | " maternal
me bro | " maternal me si | | | | | Brother bro | Sister si | | | | | Son son |
Daughter da | | Nephew, brother's son bro son | Niece, brother's
daughter bro da | | Nephew, sister's son si son | Niece, sister's daughter
si da | | | | | Male first cousins: | Female first cousins: | | 1. Son of
paternal | 1. Dau. of paternal | | uncle fa bro son | uncle fa bro da | | 2.
Son of maternal | 2. Dau. of maternal | | uncle me bro son | uncle me bro
da | | 3. Son of paternal | 3. Dau. of paternal | | aunt fa si son | aunt fa si
da | | 4. Son of maternal | 4. Dau. of maternal | | aunt me si son | aunt me
si da |
|_________________________________|_______________________
_____________|
Those relationships that are expressed by different combinations of
these letters differ _specifically_; therefore, in saying, in the next
chapter, that each person has "roughly, on the average, one fertile
relative in each and every form of specific kinship," it means in each
and every combination of the above syllables that is practically
possible.
Relationship may also be expressed conveniently for some purposes in
Degrees of remoteness, the number of the Degree being that of the
number of syllables used to express the specific kinship.
CHAPTER VII.

--NUMBER OF KINSFOLK IN EACH DEGREE.
The population may be likened to counters spread upon a table, each
corresponding to a different individual. The counters are linked
together by bands of various widths, down to mere threads, the widths
being proportional to the closeness of the several kinships. Those in the
first degree (father, mother, brother, sister, son, _daughter_) are
comparatively broad; those in the second degree (grandparent, uncle,
aunt, nephew, niece, _grandchild_) are considerably narrower; those in
the third degree are very narrow indeed. Proceeding outwards, the
connections soon become thinner than gossamer. The person
represented by any one of these counters may be taken as the subject of
a pedigree, and all the counters connected with it may be noted up to
any specified width of band. In this book one of the counters is
supposed to represent a Fellow of the Royal Society, whose name
appears in the "Year-Book" of that Society for 1904, and the linkage
proceeds outwards from him to the third degree inclusive. Usually it
stops there, but a few distant kinships have been occasionally inserted
chiefly to testify to a prolonged heritage of family traits.
The intensity with which any specified quality occurs in each or any
degree of kinship is measured by the proportion between the numbers
of those who possess the quality in question and the total number of
persons in that same degree. Particular inquiries were made on the
latter point, but, as already stated, the answers were incomplete. There
is, however, enough information to justify three conclusions of primary
importance to the present inquiry--namely, the average number (1) of
brothers of the subject, (2) of brothers of his father, and (3) of brothers
of his mother.
The number of Fellows to whom circulars were addressed was 467.
The number of those who gave useful replies was 207, a little more
than one-half of whom sent complete returns