A Twisted Twin Tale

Lord David Alton stated last month that a pair of twins separated at birth had met and married. His remarks made international news last week.

"They were never told that they were twins," he said during the Dec. 10 debate on a law covering human fertility and embryology. They had been adopted by separate families and "met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation."

No further details about the couple have emerged, and it is not known when the marriage took place or how long they were together before they discovered the truth. [Link]

Jon Henley is skeptical.

Here's the thing: it all came from a single remark more than a month ago by the vehemently anti-abortion Roman Catholic peer and father of four, Lord Alton, in favour of all children having the right to know the identity of their biological parents.

He had heard about this particular case, he said, from the judge who handled the annulment. Or perhaps (he later admitted) a judge who was "familiar with the case". Britain's top family judge, Sir Mark Potter, has never heard of the story. And, as the excellent Heresy Corner blog notes, the whole thing is statistically improbable, procedurally implausible (for 40 years, adoption practice has been to keep twins together) and based on the equivalent of a friend in the pub saying, "Hey, I heard the most amazing story the other day." [Link]

[Thanks to Nancy for the initial tip!]

Celebrity Sells

An Ancestry.co.uk survey shows that 20% of adults in Britain are researching the histories of their houses.

The report said a number of urban myths are fuelling the interest, such as a suggestion that John Lennon lived in a yet-to-be identified house in Blackpool and a rumour that Bob Dylan once had a house in Crouch End, north London. [Link]

The head of an estate agency adds that having a celebrity among its past owners can increase a home's value by up to 10%. If the celebrity was a serial killer, subtract 10%.

The Gravity of the Situation

Derek Bourner moved from Britain to New Zealand a few years ago to live near his daughter. Now immigration authorities are kicking him out because his family's "centre of gravity" is in the wrong place.

Immigration officials say because he has two daughters in Britain and only one in New Zealand, the family's "centre of gravity" is considered to be Britain.

The immigration policy states that parents of New Zealand residents will be given residence only if they have "an equal or greater number of adult children living lawfully and permanently in New Zealand than any other single country". [Link]

This is a useful concept. Giving each family member equal weight, one can figure out the center of gravity of a clan, and then hold a family reunion at that location. Most of my immediate family lives in Maine, but I have a brother who lives in Florida, which would shift our reunion spot to the south.

The folks in New Zealand have made the mistake of allowing only two possible residences for Derek. If they really wanted to teach him a lesson, they would deport him to the true "centre of gravity" of his family—a place half as far from Britain as from New Zealand. Pakistan, I think.

Way, Way Off the Reservation

Two women in England, Doreen Isherwood and Anne Hall, have learned that their mitochondrial DNA is Native American.

Indigenous Americans were brought over to the UK as early as the 1500s.

Many were brought over as curiosities; but others travelled here in delegations during the 18th Century to petition the British imperial government over trade or protection from other tribes.

Experts say it is probable that some stayed in Britain and married into local communities. [Link]

Eggstreme Longevity

Florrie Baldwin is the oldest woman in Britain. According to her six-year-old great-great grandson Harry, "She really, really is 110. None of my friends have a grandma as old as mine."

Apart from the odd niggle she is still fit and healthy for her age and attributes her long life to eating an egg sandwich for breakfast and a cooked meal for dinner.

She said: "I always eat an egg sandwich in the morning and have at least one hot meal each day. I think I've had an egg sandwich almost every day since I was married at 23. I also do like a glass of sherry now and again."

If she had eaten a fried egg sandwich every day since she was 23, it would mean she had polished off 31,755 in her lifetime. [Link]

Fishing for Men

Steven Rigden spotted a peculiar "fishing fleet" while browsing the UK outbound passenger lists at ancestorsonboard.com.

Reading down the list of names, past Mrs Wright, Mrs Simpson, the infant and ayah (Indian nanny), you come to Miss Max, Miss Cowell, Miss Blyth, Miss Graham… a long sequence of unmarried women, down to Miss Sandys and Miss Good. This is the suspected “[fishing] fleet”: marriageable young women sailing out to India in search of eligible bachelors, preferably the so-called “heaven-born” serving in the Indian Civil Service or officers in the Army. The fleet sailed out from Britain in the autumn or early winter and spent the next few cooler Indian months socialising at the British clubs and angling for a groom.

Unsuccessful women - the “returned empties” - re-embarked for Britain in the spring. [Link]

By the way, passenger lists from 1890 through 1909 are now available.

Permanent Vacation

Thousands of orphaned "home children" were shipped from Britain to Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to make room in UK orphanages. Cecil Verge of the British Home Children and Descendants Association says the trip came as a surprise to some of the kids.

Some of the children, he adds, didn't even know where they were going: "I've heard of cases where the agencies would ask the kids if they wanted to go on holiday. One child I know used to say he'd been on holiday here for the past 60 years." [Link]

Did They Come From the British Moors?

Seven white British men who share the same unusual surname have been found to share a Y chromosome usually found in West Africa.

The African Y chromosome — the packet of genetic material passed down through the male line — probably originated from a man from Senegal or Guinea-Bissau who lived in Yorkshire in the early 18th century and was inherited by his male descendants.

It is even possible that the line goes back farther still, to Roman soldiers from North Africa posted to Hadrian’s Wall 1,800 years ago. This “division of Moors”, which included the earliest known Africans in Britain, included recruits from what is now Morocco. [Link]

Update: This is from Wednesday's Sun Online:

University of Leicester boffins refused to reveal the name — but the Sun found it to be ‘Marton’.

A genealogist told us: “We know it derives from a village in Yorkshire and there were 122 people with that name. This fits only the name Marton.” [Link]

The British Are a Testy Bunch

From The Boston (Mass.) Globe:

Effort ties citizenship to 'Britishness'

Standards raised for immigrants

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | August 18, 2005

LONDON -- Ali Kasim, a PhD student from Iraq, hardly remembers the letter that came in the mail three years ago, informing him that he had become a British citizen.

But his wife will remember the moment she became British: At 3:25 p.m. on Friday, she stood at the town hall, swore allegiance in halting English to the Queen and all her heirs, and received a commemorative medal.

[snip]

In November, the government will require all new citizens to pass a "Britishness test" demonstrating a minimum standard of English and knowledge of government practices, a move that officials say is also unprecedented in British history.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Other requirements of the Britishness test:

1. Expressing nostalgia for British colonial rule of one's native country.
2. Deriding the French while secretly coveting their food.
3. Viewing a photograph of Camilla Parker Bowles without wincing.
4. Singing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" in full wardrobe.

Who's Your Daddy?

From WebMD:

Paternity Study Shakes Up the Family Tree

British Researchers Look at How Many Dads Are Unknowingly Raising Another Man's Child

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
on Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Aug. 10, 2005 -- New British research is rattling the roots of the family tree, citing paternity "discrepancy" in perhaps 4% of fathers studied.

"Paternal discrepancy" is a delicate term for a loaded subject. It refers to a man who wrongly thinks he's a child's biological father.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

The Truth Hurts

From the UK National Archives:

Census reveals the gossip columnist from 1861
19 May 2005

In vividly describing his neighbours as “bastards”, “prostitutes” and “syphilitic paupers” in the census, Isaac Norris Hunt could almost be depicted as the 1861 version of a gossip columnist.

A data collector for Stow-on-the-World in the 1861 national census, Mr Hunt took a rather overzealous approach into his task of collating information on his fellow Cheltenham residents.

Along with the vigorous observations of I.N Hunt, The National Archives has unveiled the complete name, birthplace and occupation of residents across all 52 counties of England and Wales in 1861. You can trace the lives of ancestors through the five consecutive censuses.

A railway manager by profession, Mr Hunt took the opportunity to add some highly personal remarks when entering the occupation of his neighbours:

* Several are listed as prostitutes including Emma Cook aged 19 and the 64-year old Mary Newman
* Eliza Williams is said to be ‘kept’ by her ‘paramour’ William Clapton
* The unfortunate Hannah Cokey is described as a ‘pauper, syphilitic’
* William Shall was an ‘absconding bankrupt’
* Elizabeth Wixey ‘cohabits with a man’
* and the two young sons of the ‘very doubtful’ Lavinia Collicott are described rather bluntly as ‘bastards’.

Unsurprisingly, Isaac Hunt does not appear to have undertaken the role of enumerator in any of the later censuses, which are now held at The National Archives.