Pedigree

“ A genealogist, however, is not satisfied with a pedigree which cannot be proved, and if our pedigree-hunter thinks, either from the high qualities with which he is endowed, or from the knowledge of noble ancestors having adorned his family tree, that kings must have been undoubtedly numbered among his forbears—well, of course, he must make good his claim, perhaps even to royal descent in the male line. ”

“ Do not fall into the error of supposing that a pedigree is evidence of quality. It may be and it may not, for even the best thoroughbreds sometimes throw scrubs. Every one should know that. The pedigree is valuable only in giving you a line on the ancestry behind the animal, for blood lines are far more important, everything else being equal, than the individual specimen. ”

“ In keeping an intelligent pedigree record it is necessary to give each rabbit in your breeding hutches a name or a number and to keep a record of the performance of each individual. There is such a demand for pedigrees at the present time that many breeders are merely "feeding the public" with pedigrees with high sounding names and passing off inferior stock. But where the rules of the National Association are followed and the pedigree has something besides a name behind it, it is the most valuable aid known in making progress in the matter of intelligent breeding. ”

“ But, since you must have a pedigree, you say, and as you seem anxious to know who I am, I enclose you the following, as an accurate account of my own pedigree, which I furnished to a legal gentleman in New York city, some years since, [13] and which, I presume, will answer your purpose as well as any other would; as I observe, by your polite favor now before me, that you 'want A pedigree.' Please read this carefully, and then inform me (as you promise to do) if you 'can enlighten me further'! ”

“ The great joy of the pedigree-hunter is the joy of discovery, and if he sets about the work energetically he must discover something—yes, and many things.
It is delightful to find a lost link in one’s own family history, and, when doing this, the searcher will often unexpectedly come across a store of information connected with other families in which he is interested. ”

“ WHAT is there in heredity? Ask the horseman, the dog fancier and the horticulturalist, and you will find that a belie! in heredity is the cardinal point of all their work. Among animals and plants nothing is more obvious than the general resemblance of offspring to parents and the stock from which they come. With the highest-priced Jersey, the blue ribbon horse or a prize-winning dog, goes always the pedigree as the essential guarantee of worth. ”

“ Enthusiasm and patience are certainly necessary qualifications of the successful pedigree-hunter, and endowed with these virtues he has not much to fear, for the driest details seem replete with interest when regarded in the light of dawning discoveries.
Nor can a pedigree-hunter work at genealogy alone; many fascinating subjects, such as biography, history, and heraldry, must almost necessarily more or less follow in its train, opening up a vista of further interest and a field for new discoveries. ”

“ In making the selection of the gilt, consider the pedigree and the individuality of the animal. Unless you know the pedigree it is best to leave that to the reliable breeder with whom you are dealing. ”

“ But although it might be allowable, in making out the descent of an individual man or any other animal, from a certain ancestor or pair of ancestors, to aid the pedigree by strong family or race resemblance, even when a link is wanting, it could only be for the purpose of establishing a pedigree, a connection of lives with lives, that such collateral evidence could be resorted to. ”

“ In breeding horses, structure is first, and endowment with nervous energy is next to be seen to, and then pedigree—afterwards that these be fittingly united, by proper selection for coupling, in order to secure the highest degree of probability which the nature of the case admits, that the offspring may prove a perfect machine and be suitably endowed with motive power. ”

“ So many people appear to be content with the knowledge that the sire which they are purchasing has a recorded pedigree and is a pure bred sire eligible for entry in the herd book of its breed, but they forget that it is possible in the crossing of two pedigree animals of a similar breed to obtain as great a mixture of blood and points as in the mating of two cross-breds or two come-by-chances. Uniformity in a herd, stud, or flock can only be rendered comparatively certain by the continued use of sires of similar breeding. ”

“ But as a matter of fact, these Eastern pedigrees are pure fakes, merely made up things, such, for instance, as the recorded pedigree of the famous Hambletonian, the founder of the standard bred trotter in America. To the Arabs in their breeding, pedigree makes no more difference in mating than it does to the birds of the air or the beasts of the forest. 27They know that they have animals of pure blood and that the progeny of them will still be pure no matter how closely the parents may be related. There is selection, of course, as inferior males are not permitted to be sires. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the majority of our greater and lesser nobility are of royal descent, and if our pedigree-hunter’s ancestors were allied to such families, the descent in his case should be comparatively easy to prove. ”

“ The selector must be well satisfied as to soundness of constitution, especially in laying the foundation of a show-yard herd. If male or female have hereditary defects of constitution, their progeny will inherit them. Show-yard stock, being pampered for exhibition, are more liable than the common stock of the country to be affected with hereditary diseases. Pedigree is of the most vital importance. We ought always to prefer a bull of high pedigree, with fair symmetry and quality, to another bull, though much superior in appearance, but of questionable pedigree. ”

“ The offspring [Pg 79] of parents that are themselves standard by performance and not by birth are entitled to registration as standard by birth. There are thus many standard animals whose pedigree cannot be traced. Nevertheless, although we may not know the pedigree of an animal that is standard by performance, we know that he must be trotting bred, since no horse can trot a mile in 2:30 that is not trotting bred. It must be admitted, however, that trotters cannot be bred with the certainty with which you can breed thoroughbreds and hackneys.
DELHI. An ideal type of thoroughbred saddle-horse. ”

“ On the other hand, the special tracing of the human pedigree, the closer definition of the animal forms known to us, which either actually belong to the ancestors of man, or at least stand in very close blood relationship to them, will always remain a more or less approximate hypothesis of descent, all the more in danger of deviating from the real pedigree the nearer it endeavours to approach it by searching for the individual ancestral forms. ”

“ It is in the evidence which it brings that the animal is descended from a line all the individuals of which were alike, and excellent of their kind, and so is almost sure to transmit like excellencies to its progeny in turn;—not that every animal with a long pedigree full of high-sounding names is necessarily of great value as a breeder, for in every race or breed, as we have seen while speaking of the law of variation, there will be here and there some which are less perfect and symmetrical of their kind than others ”

“ But the case would be quite different if the winning sire and dam came from the same old established herd in which the animals had been bred for generations on similar lines. It is this concentration of certain qualities in generation after generation which renders the pedigree animal so intensely prepotent, particularly when mated with animals of an ordinary character or not possessing concentrated breeding. ”

“ Most of the probably most helpful MSS. and publications have been mentioned in this little book; but if the pedigree-hunter is roaming among the documents in the Record Office or the British Museum, or among the contents of a great library, let him look through the various [Pg 60] indexes and try to find out something new for himself. There is a joy in discovery, even if it is only that of an unknown document, and it is impossible to enumerate every work which might help all cases, while new ones, of course, are constantly being added. ”

“ Some families rise in the social scale, others descend, and the genealogist may come across numerous instances of the vicissitudes of families.
Heirs to the highest of what were regarded as extinct titles have been found occupying the very lowest positions in the social scale. Who knows whether some unexpected stroke of fortune may not come across our genealogical searcher. In fact, there are few limits as to the possibilities which may arise in pedigree-hunting. ”

“ But what’s the use of a pedigree, young man? Why d’you want somethin’ with a colt you don’t ask for with a human? They tell me you be lookin’ to marry Joe Hinch—my own niece, an’ own blood granddaughter to old Luke Dangler an’ old Dave Hinch! ”

“ This observation is most dependable for use in removing litter culls as well as in controlling sex ratio to be weaned, and may be used fairly early in litter life when caretaker becomes experienced.
32. Pedigrees and Breeding Records
Pedigree on commercial breeding stock is unnecessary. But, within one's own hamstery, such pedigree data prevents the mating of immediate relatives without knowing it, but guides line-breeding when desired. That is the main value of knowing the pedigree of hamsters. ”

“ It is shown that while the continued selection, over a period of years, of highly fecund females failed to bring about any change in average fecundity of the strain used, this character must nevertheless be inherited since pedigree lines have been isolated which uniformly breed true to definite degrees of fecundity. ”

“ It is a matter of common knowledge that living things repeat in a more or less blurred and abbreviated series their generalized pedigree in their embryological changes. For instance, as we shall presently remind the reader, the developing chick or rabbit passes through a fish like stage, and the human fœtus wears an undeniable tail. ”

“ Done Pedigree.—A very old MS. pedigree of the family of Done of Utkington, in the county before me, connects with that family no less than twenty-three Cheshire families of distinction, viz. Cholmondeley, Egerton, Wilbraham, Booth, Arden, Leicester, and seventeen others. Now, as it appears by your note on the communication of a correspondent (Vol. vi., p. 273.) , that there exists a pedigree of the family of Done, of Utkington, in the British Museum, Additional MS. No. 5836. pp. 180. ”

“ He supplies pedigree animals of all kinds to the farmers of all other lands, and he has attained this preeminence by careful attention to the great, indeed the surpassing, importance of purity of breed. ”

“ Ancestry a Network.—From the fact that each child has all of the ancestors of its mother as well as of its father, arises the great complications which are met with in determining the lineage of an individual. [Pg 4] A person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and thus following out pedigree it is plain to be seen that through this process of doubling in each generation, in the course of a few centuries one’s ancestry is apparently enormous. ”

“ There are many such in all good libraries, a list of which will be given later on; but, while the search is in its infancy and does not go farther back than two or three generations, probably the Peerages (if the family is of social [Pg 7] position) , with perhaps certain other printed pedigrees and works on family history, such as Burke’s Commoners and Landed Gentry, should suffice for the present.
But the golden rule in genealogy should always be remembered; and, though the information thus derived may possibly be fairly correct, many details may call for verification later in the search. ”

“ A peculiar and, it seems to me, an inexplicable fact is, that previous pregnancies have an influence upon offspring. This is well known to breeders of animals. If pure-blooded mares or bitches have been once covered by an inferior male, in subsequent fecundations the young are likely to partake of the character of the first male, even if they be afterwards bred with males of unimpeachable pedigree. ”

“ In the first place, while we are exceedingly careful in selecting our horses and cattle for breeding, while we insist upon pedigree for the animals in order that we may bring out the very best strain of stock upon our farms, we exercise no such care with respect to the selection of a father or mother for our children. ”

“ It is instructive to compare here the progeny of matings of different kinds. In generation IV of Fig. 26, the 9th and 10th persons are brother and sister. The sister was of considerable ability and married into a family of ability, producing 8 offspring, 5 of whom were able. The brother was a "normal" person and married a similar individual, producing 10 "normal" children. It would be interesting to know the details regarding these two large families of cousins. Another interesting comparison is found in this pedigree. ”

“ Some writers, [2] who have not attended to natural history, have attempted to show that the force of inheritance has been much exaggerated. The breeders of animals would smile at such simplicity; and if they condescended to make any answer, might ask what would be the chance of winning a prize if two inferior animals were paired together? They might ask whether the half-wild Arabs were led by theoretical notions to keep pedigrees of their horses? Why have pedigrees been scrupulously kept and published of the Shorthorn cattle, and more recently of the Hereford breed? ”