Just under a hundred years ago, on Wednesday 5 December 1923, William Townsend Jackson Gun gave a lecture to the Society of Genealogists on the inheritance of ability.
Gun, a barrister and joint editor of the Genealogists’ Magazine argued that marked ability (or talent) is rarely inherited through more than three or four generations. As evidence, he claimed a great painter or sculptor rarely transmitted genius to his descendants. A counter-argument was that among the descendants of the baker Vitus “Veit” Bach (c1550 – 1619) were at least 57 musicians, “30 of them eminent”. In response, Lord Farrer argued that “all good qualities” came from mothers – particularly “the male’s two chief assets, courage and health.” This perhaps suggests that Farrer considered courage and health as more important qualities in individuals than artistic ability or other notable skills. (Gloucestershire Echo, 6 Dec 1923, p5).
Ideas of inheritance
A century later and we are still gripped by ideas of inheritance. The genealogy world was abuzz after FamilyTreeDNA’s recent announcement that they had sequenced the genome of the composer Ludvig van Beethoven (1770-1827). This excitement suggests that we are just as keen as our inter-war forebears on
