Wallowa chieftain. [volume] (Joseph, Union County, Or.) 1884-1909, 1902-02-13
FoRTY-sEcoND COUSINS.
According to the Professor 1t Is the
Remotest Relatiouship.

Remotest Relationship.
He was professor of mathematics in
one of our women's colleges, middle
aged, fond of a joke and given to re-
ducing the things of common life TO
formulas, partly for the fun of it and
partly to bring mathematical truths
closer to the minds .cf his pupils. One
as the professor came in, he overheard
one of the girls say, with a sigh: "Oh,
he's some forty-second cousin, l believe,
and suppose must show him
around"
You should be careful" interjected
the professor, with a fairly successful
effort to appear solemn, you should be
more careful in your use of mathemat-
ical terms. Are you sure you are strict
ly accurate when you say 'forty-second
cousin?' He may be closer degree of
relationship"
"Why! He's no relation at all, if 1t
comes to that" said the fair student.
1T is" resumed the professor, imper-
turbably, las you doubtless know al
ready, question of the powers of ,.
We all have two parents, four grand
parents, eight great-grandparents, six
teen great-great-grandpar each fig
ure being a power of 2 and in N
generations consequently we have a
grandparent with (N-D greats in front
of the title. 1t also obtains inversely.
All who trace to the same parents are
brothers or sisters, TO the same grand
parent are cousins, to the same great
grandparent are second cousins, to the
N-G grandparent are On plus II tn
cousins.
"The powers of ., however, reach as
founding figures rather quickly. We
have 1923 (9-greaO grandparents
each, for example. Going back twenty
generations, we have each a little more
than million 19-great-grandpare
over a billion grandparents,
and in the forty-third generation we
have each about 1,43S, 500 100000 40
great-grandparents, and all who trace
back to any one of those ABS, ,S0OOOO,-
600 are forty-second cousins.
"If you consider a moment, you will
see that at each of this thousand bill
lions is progenitor, that there is little
room in the worlds population, as at
present constituted, for the mob of
cousins. There is saving clause,
however. This would only obtain if
everybody was careful not to marry in
the same line of descent.
in practice we usually object to
marrying cousins and some people draw
the line on second cousins, but to make
the above statement come true we
should object to, say, forty-second cou-
sins, which is impossible, practically.
We cannot, in practice, draw the line on
twentieth cousins, for example. If two
twentieth cousins marry it throws out
one from the million of nineteen great
grandparents to be considered. and so
with the other degrees. Probably in
practice that is what we are always
doing-when we marry. We are almost
undoubtedly marrying at least a TWEEN
ty-tifth cousin, and everybody in the
NOlll 10 at ltdSl IL -SeCOuu tOuS IL
and probably somewhat nearer in rela-
tionship."
Gracious" said the original offender,
a blonde, by the way. IF | am born in
st. Louis and young man is born in
Newton-at-at-wel about the same
time-are we related"
Certainly responded the professor,
with a grin. You are On plus u tn
cousins, having descended from the
same N-g grandparent, possibly along
where \ is less than 30 at least"
Gee" said the tall brunette of the
class, who had been listening, as she
felt of her back hair and helped her
self to caramel, according to the Bos-
ton Herald, "he would be an n-g grand
parent all right"