I can't really call you ungrateful over these. I merely think there is something of value in them still.
I am at the end of my "Most-Visited Posts." There are still some on the list, but I'm not so excited about bringing them forward.
Hate Groups, from March 2013
Us and Them, A writer at Foreign Affairs claims that Europe has been peaceful since WWII not because of Pan-European sentiment, but because the national groups all coalesced first. March 2014
Pedigree Collapse. Reposted once before. Since we wrapped up as much of the genealogy as we are going to do last year, I did discover one first cousin marriage (among the Spinneys of Nova Scotia, around 1800) and at least two second-cousin marriages. Also, when identifying Mayflower ancestors one sees the same thing. I am descended from a bunch of them, often by a variety of paths. I trace back to William Brewster by at least two paths, and to Stephen Hopkins, the least-respectable of the group, by at least nine different routes. Hopkins had many children, and his children had many children, so that clan grew quickly. Or we could say that pedigree collapsed quickly, if we are counting from the other direction.
Your posting on Pedigree Collapse, which involved genealogical investigations, reminds me of something my sister-in-law found out in her investigations. A lot of the widows or widowers in my family tree married siblings of the deceased. But this didn't occur only with WASPs. A family friend of Italian background had a stepmother who was also her aunt. Her father waited some years to marry until the stepmother/aunt was of an age to marry.
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