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!]

Changing Clocks Changes Birth Order

A woman in North Carolina gave birth to twins last Sunday, right around the time that Daylight Saving Time ended.

Peter Sullivan Cirioli was dubbed "Baby A" at WakeMed Cary when he arrived early Sunday morning.

“Yes, Peter was born first, it was at 1:32 a.m.,” mother Laura Cirioli said.

Thirty-four minutes later, Peter's twin sister, Allison Raye Cirioli, known as "Baby B," made her entrance into the world.

Because of Daylight Saving Time, Allison's time of birth was 1:06 a.m., which makes her 26 minutes older than her brother even though he was born first. [Link, via Neatorama]

Whatever Mama Said Went

Wayne Myers is compiling a history of the "lost community" on Bald Hill in the town of Danby, New York.

According to Myers, one of the more colorful personalities on the hill was that of Grandma Felane Gunn, a rather large woman who married George Mettler and then proceeded to lay down the law. When she was pregnant with twins and the doctor was called, it turned out to be a difficult delivery resulting in two sons, Frank and Fred.

But what followed the delivery was bizarre. Upon viewing the boys, mother Mettler declared the brothers would only father one child between them. And she was correct. Fred married Florence Rumsey and they had a daughter, Marjorie. Frank married three times and all marriages were childless. “Mama said there would only be one child and the word was, whatever Mama said went,” Myers said. [Link]

A Very Understanding Husband

Ann Stolper's daughter was unable to have children after treatment for cervical cancer, so 59-year-old Ann stepped in and became a surrogate mother to her own twin grandchildren last December.

Ira Stolper enjoyed teasing neighbors who marveled at his pregnant wife. Jaws that had dropped at the news she was pregnant dropped farther when Ira told them that she was expecting twins.

And then he'd drop the real bombshell: "'I'm not the father. My son-in-law knocked her up.' Then I would say, `Let me explain.'" [Link]

Two by Two by Two

Cherise Brown of Philadelphia has ten kids. They tend to come in pairs.

Meet 7-day old Tymir and Tyrese. The boys are the most recent additions to this family of 10.

They're also the third set of twins to be born to the family in as many years.

Cherise says "it just came natural, back to back 2005, '06 and '07."

Here are their older brother and sister one-year-old twins Tariq and Tamara and the oldest set of twins two-year-old Tykerah and Tanerah. [Link]

Female Finn Twins Just Can't Win

Virpi Lummaa's interest in Finland's copious church records is purely statistical.

The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. [Link]

A DNA Dilemma

Nancy Bovy has sent me another great item. Either Raymon Miller or his twin brother Richard Miller is the father of a 3-year-old girl. But there is no scientific way of knowing which one planted the seed.

The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman's testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court. [Link]

Since identical twins are genetically indistinguishable, a DNA test can't rule out either brother. Whichever brother is saddled with child support can argue that he isn't the father. (This is also a good way to beat a murder rap on Law & Order.)

Those Confusing Smiths

Enrolled at Consett Community Sports College in the UK are a set of identical twins, a set of identical triplets, and a set of quadruplets. All are named Smith.

The 750-student college has another six pupils with the surname Smith, plus two teachers and two classroom assistants.

To ensure the triplets get the right coursework and marks, teachers have taken to sitting them in different parts of the classroom.

Maths teacher Allan McArdle said: "It can be confusing but the nice thing is that all of them are lovely." [Link]

Two-Toned Twins

Alicia and Jasmin Singerl of Burpengary, Australia, are the twin daughters of a Jamaican-English mom and a German dad. But people will forever wonder if they're really related.

Alicia has dark brown eyes and complexion, while Jasmin is blue-eyed and fair-skinned.

Experts say the chance of twins being born with such different physical characteristics is about a million to one.

[Their mother said] "When we go out people stop and ask if they are twins. Other people will look but not say anything. Maybe they think I am babysitting one of them.

"Someone even asked me if I was sure there wasn't a mix-up at the hospital. But there was no mix-up – they are my girls and they are both so beautiful." [Link]

A Mother of the Highest Caliber

From The Evening News of Lincoln, Neb., Jan. 31, 1895:

A remarkable woman is Blanche Leon, who lives with her four children in a New York tenement house. As a mother Mrs. Leon claims distinction. Though only 47 years old, she has borne 33 children, of whom seven are now living.

She is the wife of Joseph Leon Navachelski, Barnum's old "solemn clown." She was born in Madrid and at 13 married Leon. She joined his company and was the original human "cannon ball."

She went under the name of Blanche Sullivan and was nightly shot from a cannon. In 1862 her first children were born. They were twins, and within five years she presented the happy Leon with four more pairs. The first four children were born in Havana, and of the others two were born in Paris, two in Russia and 25 in the United States. Mrs. Leon shows birth certificates and gives ample evidence of her statement that she is the mother of 33 children.

The 1880 census shows Joseph and Blanche living in Manhattan with exactly zero children. Note that Joseph's age was then reported as 28. If correct, he would have been about 8 when he married Blanche, and the father of ten children by the time he was 15. No wonder he was "solemn."

Didn't We Once Share a Womb?

Douglas and Holly Funk of Chicago adopted a little girl in 2004 who'd been abandoned in Yangzhou, China, and named her Mia.

Carlos and Diana Ramirez of Pembroke Pines, Florida, adopted a little girl in 2005 who'd been abandoned in Yangzhou. And named her Mia.

Last May, Mrs. Ramirez wrote about her daughter's upcoming birthday on a website for parents of kids adopted from the Yangzhou orphanage.

Mrs Funk saw the message and wrote back, 'Diana, I have a Mia as well and she is almost 3.'

The two mothers began e-mailing each other and exchanging photographs of their daughters.

The physical likeness of the two girls was too striking to ignore.

After comparing biographical details, they decided to swab the girls' mouths and send the samples for DNA testing.

The results showed that there was an 85 per cent probability that the girls were half-sisters at the very least.

Greater certainty would only be possible if one of the girls' biological parents could be tested as a comparison. But given their identical birth dates and backgrounds, it is most likely they are twins. [Link]

She's Her Own Twin

Lydia Fairchild was pretty sure she had conceived and given birth to three children, but tests showed that they shared none of her DNA. The Washington woman ended up in court, forced to prove that she was the mother of her kids.

Fairchild called her obstetrician, Dr. Leonard Dreisbach. He was there for all the births and assured Fairchild he'd vouch for her in court.

"I would have told them that she certainly had these three kids, and that they were hers, and that I don't know what's wrong with the DNA testing, but I know that she had the kids," Dreisbach said.

The state went so far as to place a court officer in the delivery room when her next child was born, to witness an immediate DNA test.

"They took DNA from the baby and myself right then and there, after birth, and it came back that there is no way possible that baby is mine," Fairchild said.

Even though they'd witnessed the birth, officials believed she was acting as a surrogate, possibly bearing a child for money. [Link]

Nope, not a surrogate. Fairchild has a condition called "chimerism." She was conceived as a twin, but the DNA of her never-born sibling became fused with her own, and still is present in her body. Unlike Myrtle Corbin, she never suspected she was a medical marvel.

Fairchild's story will be told Wednesday night on ABC's Primetime.

They Never Left Each Other's Side

Some descendants of Chang and Eng Bunker—the original "Siamese twins"—are profiled in the current issue of National Geographic. The brothers settled near Mount Airy, North Carolina, in 1839, married local sisters, and had 21 children between them ... so to speak. Their descendants now number around 1,500.

Open admiration for the twins was not always a given. The older generation preferred a tight-lipped approach. Jessie Bunker Bryant, the 70-year-old grande dame and the force behind the annual family reunion, tells of a Bunker bride who didn't know about her famous relatives until the night before her wedding. "Your fiancé may not want to go ahead with this," warned her mother after disclosing the family secret. Happily, the revelation charmed the groom-to-be. [p. 151]

The article explains that, after 14 contentious years of living under one roof, the brothers agreed to split their time between two homes—three days in one, then three days in the other.

I was curious about how this would be represented in census records. In 1860, Chang's family was listed immediately after Eng's, in the next dwelling (the occupation of each man given as "Siamese Twin"). In 1870, Eng was listed on page 313A of the Mount Airy census, his brother on page 324B. Since the enumerator was supposed to list "every person whose place of abode on the first day of June, 1870, was in this family," shouldn't one of the twins have been found living in his brother's home? Was there a special provision in the census-taking guidelines for conjoined twins living (again, so to speak) apart?

A Six-Legged Marriage

When writing a family history, one should always provide something more than names and dates. Take, for example, this WorldConnect entry for Josephine Myrtle (Corbin) Bicknell. Her approximate date of birth is given, and her marriage date, but nowhere does it mention that she was born with four legs.

According to The Human Marvels, Myrtle was born in 1868 with her dipygus twin sister attached down below.

The tiny body of her twin was only fully developed from the waist down and even then it was malformed – tiny and possessing only three toes on each foot. Myrtle was able to control the limbs of her sister but was unable to use them for walking and she herself had a difficult time getting around as she was born with a clubbed foot. Technically, the ‘Four-Legged Woman’ only had one good, usable leg.

Despite this infirmity, Myrtle married and had children. Here's where it gets genealogically interesting.

It seems that her twin sister was also fully sexually formed – thus Myrtle possessed two vaginas. She had four daughters and a son and it has been rumored that three of her children were born from one set of organs and two from the other. Whether this is true or not; it is medically possible. [Link, via Neatorama]

Medically possible, but genealogically problematic. Should she be called the birth mother of all five children? If not, should she called the surrogate mother of some? And was her husband a bigamist, an adulterer, or just a generous brother-in-law?

(More images of Myrtle may be seen here. C'mon, you know you wanna look.)

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

The Next Best Thing to Clones

From UCW Entertainment Newswire, posted Nov. 17, 2005:

Great new genealogy book written by twin sisters

/UCWE/ - Announcing the publication of “Climbing Family Trees-Whispers in the Leaves”! Spring Creek Books is pleased to release this highly informational and cleverly written book on heritage hunting, or more commonly known as family history.

Twin authors Trina Boice and Tracey Long, who share the same family tree, help readers learn how to climb their own family tree with easy to follow steps, hundreds of resources and dozens of inspiring stories by people who have found much more than just names and dates while climbing their family tree. There are helpful “how to” tips and tons of creative ideas on how to include your family in your research efforts as well as celebrate your discoveries and honor your ancestors.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

To borrow a recent joke from The Daily Show, here's a photograph of the authors.

Favoritism is Genetic

From AScribe Newswire:

Genes Contribute to Patriotism, Group Loyalty

LONDON, Ontario, Nov. 14 (AScribe Newswire) -- Research showing the importance of genetic similarity to group loyalty and patriotism was published in the October issue of Nations and Nationalism (Vol. 11, pp. 489-507; an academic journal from the London School of Economics).

[snip]

For example, identical twins grieve more for their co-twin than do non-identical twins. And, family members grieve more for children who resemble their side of the family than they do their spouse's side.

Also, spouses who are more genetically similar have longer and more satisfying marriages.

Based on their DNA, two randomly chosen individuals from the same ethnic group are found to be as related as first cousins.

Thus, two random people of English ancestry are the equivalent of a 3/8 cousin compared to people from the Near East; a 1/2 cousin by comparison with people from India; and like full cousins by comparison with people from China.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Lonely in Your Genes?

From Newswise, posted Nov. 10, 2005:

Heredity May Be the Reason Some People Feel Lonely

Newswise — Heredity helps determine why some adults are persistently lonely, research co-authored by psychologists at the University of Chicago shows.

Working with colleagues in The Netherlands, the scholars found about 50 percent of identical twins and 25 percent of fraternal twins shared similar characteristics of loneliness. Research on twins is a powerful method to study the impact of heredity because twins raised together share many of the same environmental influences as well as similar genes, thus making it easier to determine the role of genetics in development.

[snip]

Psychologists had previously thought loneliness was primarily caused by shyness, poor social skills, or inability to form strong attachments with other people.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]