BS: Are We Cousins?

Subject: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:05 AM

Anti-incest app built by Iceland college students

Nidhi Subbaraman , NBC News – 18 April 2013

A group of students at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík have created an Android app that prevents Icelanders from accidentally dating their cousins.

The app draws information from the Íslendingabók database, a national record of Iceland residents and family trees dating back into the Middle Ages.

Arnar Aðalsteinsson, Alexander Helgason and Hákon Björnsson, in their final year at the University of Iceland, entered and won an app-building contest sponsored by the tenders of the Íslendingabók database.

When you tap phones with someone who has the app, it brings up an alert if the owners of the two phones share a grandparent. (Of course, if you don't already know who you share a grandparent with, incest may be the least of your problems, but the team says it is looking into functionality for spotting common great grandparents, too.)

The feature is called "Sifjaspellsspillir" which directly translates to "Incest Destroyer," though the team prefers the phrase "Incest Spoiler."

The app has been downloaded 3,651 times at their last check, the team told NBC News. An app for the iPhone is very likely on the way, they say.

"Genealogy is the kind of the national hobby of Iceland," Friðrik Skúlason, a software engineer who first started building the Íslendingabók database in the 1980s, told NBC News. "On average if you pick two people on the street at random you will find they are related 6 or 7 generations back."

The database was taken over by genetics company DeCode. Íslendingabók is now a free database for anyone with an Iceland national identification to use online, where they can trace relatives and their contact information.

"[Iceland] is a small community with extensive records gong back centuries, and everybody is related to everybody else," Skúlason told NBC News. "The database contains every single person who is currently alive or that we have been able to find any information about for the past 1,100 years."

...

[a little more at the link]

We do have a number of people at the 'cat who've done considerable research on ancestors and family trees and who might be interested in an Iceland connection.

My "resident genealogist" has suggested that one of her programs can provide a list of "all known relateds" for any name she enters, but I don't have details on which program it is and/or whether it's all in her own tree, all at the parent site she's mining at the time, or something else. I'll have to schedule an appointment for a consultation if anyone's curious.

The suggestion that the new Iceland app is intended for "dating" suggests a local situation a little different than in many other places, but someone here may know of other places where "accidental attachments" might be more of a hazard. Possible "new meanings" for "safe sex" might merit discussion(?).

Other "rich lodes" approaching the implied completeness and extent of the Iceland database might also be helpful if someone's found a few worthy of note.

Open for general comments, of course. Preference given to the helpful or the exceptionally clever of course.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:08 AM

How wonderfully esoteric, John.

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:28 AM

I have a distant cousin who's a member of Mudcat, but I don't plan to commit incest with him just yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:57 AM

It isn't incest with cousins anyway; only up to the umph-how-many·℔ degree ~~ remind us, please, Richard...

You can get all sorts of relationships. One of my first cousins married her maternal aunt's brother-in-law. I have never worked out what relation their children were to themselves.

And my maternal grandparents were step-brother & sister: his widowed mother married her widower-father in middle age, when they were already in their late teens; so not the least reason why they shouldn't have married.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 08:09 AM

Incest, the family game, the game ONLY the family can play.
Buy your family incest for Christmas!

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 08:15 AM

In England relationships with first cousins are legal. Some communities actively encourage them. I believe that in some countries marriage is allowed between, say, an uncle and niece.
For those who would prefer to avoid relationships between close relatives, the Icelandic app will be of no help where parentage is in doubt. A surprisingly large number of children turn out not to have been fathered by the man named on their birth certificate - the mother may have lied, or if she slept with more than one man she may not know which was the father. There could also be cases of half brothers and sisters marrying where donor eggs are sperm have been used.

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 12:00 PM

That app has been outlawed in Arkansas. If Arkansans were prohibited from having sex with their cousins, they'd all have to drive to Missouri to find dates. All that date-night money going across the state line would wreck the Arkansas economy.

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 12:16 PM

What's a polite arky girl say to her pappy?

"Get off Pa, yer crushin my cigs." (????)

What's a cute NoDak girl say to her pappy?

"B.A.A.A.A.A.A.A"

What's a ...

Better quit now before somebody takes a fence.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: GUEST,Lavengro
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:31 PM

Funny the things you end up Googling from Mudcat threads!!

According to Wiki New Jersey is the place for relations with relations as it "does not apply any penalties when both parties are 18 years of age or older" whereas the possible penalty in Arkansas and Kansas ;)is 25 years. Two years in the UK. Who knew. Roll on the pub quiz!

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 02:27 AM

Marriages between close relatives have been quite common in a number of cultures. The inbreeding in several European noble families is well-known. Several sources report that some Polynesian tribes also applied a "nobility must marry nobility" tradition.

Livestock breeders frequently use inbreeding to improve their line, but of course with the option of "culling" any seriously "defective" offspring. (They're all going to be hamburger eventually anyway?). This compensation for the occasional weaknesses is frowned upon in most human cultures, but there's good evidence it was practiced to some extent by some.

In the "wild frontiers" in the US, cousin/cousin marriages were more common than probably is widely known, since often there were extremely limited numbers of "marriageable partners" available.

While the "Incest Destroyer" name for the App reported gets one's attention, the more interesting part for those with genealogical interests likely will be the depth and completeness claimed for the Icelandic database. A question is whether there are other "isolated" cultures where similar information is suspected.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 03:36 AM

In Gone With The Wind, I recall, Scarlett's troubles are exacerbated by the man she initially fancies, Ashley Wilkes, being honour-bound to marry his cousin Melanie, because "The Wilkeses always marry their cousins."

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 09:14 AM

As they say, "Vice is nice, but incest is best. It keeps it in the family."

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 12:28 PM

While visiting various C of E churches and cathedrals in the UK, I have noticed there is usually (always?) a copy of the following table, printed, framed, and hanging on the wall somewhere in pubic view. I'll bet Henry VIII had something to do with it. (It also appears in the Book of Common Prayer, which is where I copied this from:)

A TABLE
OF
KINDRED AND AFFINITY,

WHEREIN WHOSOEVER ARE RELATED ARE FORBIDDEN IN
SCRIPTURE AND OUR LAWS TO MARRY TOGETHER.

A Man may not marry his

1 GRANDMOTHER,
2 Grandfather's Wife,
3 Wife's Grandmother.

4 Father's Sister,
5 Mother's Sister,
6 Father's Brother's Wife.

7 Mother's Brother's Wife,
8 Wife's Father's Sister,
9 Wife's Mother's Sister.

10 Mother,
11 Step-Mother,
12 Wife's Mother.

13 Daughter,
14 Wife's Daughter,
15 Son's Wife.

16 Sister,
17 Wife's Sister,
18 Brother's Wife.

19 Son's Daughter,
20 Daughter's Daughter,
21 Son's Son's Wife.

22 Daughter's' Son's Wife,
23 Wife's Son's Daughter,
24 Wife's Daughter's Daughter.

25 Brother's Daughter,
26 Sister's Daughter,
27 Brother's Son's Wife.

28 Sister's Son's Wife,
29 Wife's Brother's Daughter,
30 Wife's Sister's Daughter.

A Woman may not marry with her

1 GRANDFATHER,
2 Grandmother's Husband,
3 Husband's Grandfather.

4 Father's Brother,
5 Mother's Brother,
6 Father's Sister's Husband.

7 Mother's Sister's Husband,
8 Husband's Father's Brother,
9 Husband's Mother's Brother.

10 Father,
11 Step-Father,
12 Husband's Father.

13 Son,
14 Husband's Son,
15 Daughter's Husband.

16 Brother,
17 Husband's Brother,
18 Sister's Husband.

19 Son's Son,
20 Daughter's Son,
21 Son's Daughter's Husband.

22 Daughter's Daughter's Husband,
23 Husband's Son's Son,
24 Husband's Daughter's Son.

25 Brother's Son,
26 Sister's Son,
27 Brother's Daughter's Husband.

28 Sister's Daughter's Husband,
29 Husband's Brother's Son,
30 Husband's Sister's Son.

Subject: RE: BS: Are We Cousins?
From: GUEST,Lavengro
Date: 23 Apr 13 - 07:44 AM

Hi Jim,

So it would seem that incestuous same sex marriage is not an issue for the C of E as it is not mentioned?