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Statistical Investigations   363

D. THE RECORD OF FAMILY FACULTIES AND THE LIFE-HISTORY ALBUM

In the advertisement of the prize competition Galton suggested that information should be collected with regard to the child, its parents, its grandparents and great-grandparents, Numbers 1 to 15 of his scale of relationship, and as far as possible of all the collaterals of these, i.e. members of the same sibships as these, or about 70 to 90 individuals. Cousins Galton omitted, although we now know that, both on Mendelian theory and by actual observation, they exhibit as much of the constitution of the common stirp as aunts, uncles or grandparents and more than great-grandparents'. The prizes were to be given to those who filled in the blank spaces of the Record o f Family Faculties most completely and perspicuously. The Record was published by Macmillans in 1884 and has been long out of print. A new and somewhat modified edition of it is certainly needed. It records, for the family of an individual-his stirp-what the Life-History Album of the same year does more copiously for the individual himself. In other words, the Record of Family Faculties could be extracted from the separate Life-History Albums of its units, but the inverse process is not possible. The one gives-except for the medical section-a brief account of the adult characteristics of each unit of the stirp, the other traces the unit through all phases of growth.

In the Record the following questions are asked : (1) Date of Birth ; (2) Occupation, Birthplace, Residences; (3) Age at Marriage of individual, number of sons and daughters alive and their ages, and the same for those deceased with age at death ; (4) Age at Marriage of spouse; (5) Mode of life so far as affecting growth or health; (6) Was early life laborious? why and how? (7) Adult height, adult colour of hair-colour of eyes; (8) General appearance; (9) Bodily strength and energy, if much above or below the average; (10) Keenness or imperfection of sight and other senses; (11) Mental powers and energy, if above or below the average; (12) Character and temperament; (13) Favourite pursuits and interests, artistic aptitudes. Then comes the medical history : (14) Minor ailments to which there was special liability (a) in youth, (b) in middle age; (15) Graver illnesses, (a) in youth, (b) in middle age ; (16) Cause and date of death, and age at death. There are pages for male and female relatives of whom little is known but the age at and cause of death. There are pages for summaries of the anthropometric and medical characteristics of the stirp, and two Appendices to be devoted respectively to the Biological History of the Father's and of the Mother's Family. By `biological history' Galton understood the constitutional history and hereditary peculiarities of mind and body on either father or mother's side. A third appendix deals with an examination of the way in which the faculties of the father and mother are blended or otherwise combined in the child.

1 This result of theory and observation always troubled Galton, but I do nQt think there is any doubt of its accuracy.

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