Polygamy Hurt 19th Century Mormon Wives' Evolutionary Fitness, Scientists Say
Polygamy practiced by some 19th century Mormon men had the curious effect of suppressing the overall offspring numbers of Mormon women in plural marriages, say scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and three other institutions in the March 2011 issue of Evolution and Human Behavior.Simply put, the more sister-wives a Mormon woman had, the fewer children she was likely to produce. "Although it's great in terms of number of children for successful males to have harems, the data show that for every new woman added to a male's household, the number each wife produced goes down by one child or so," said IU Bloomington evolutionary biologist Michael Wade.
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Many records have NOT yet been searched or researched by anyone and have not even seen the light of day since the day they were created, hand written, often hundreds of years ago. And certainly they have not been indexed by any genealogist.
Very little information is available from any source regarding the millions of children throughout Italy and the rest of Europe who were deemed illegitimate by the Catholic Church. The 'Church' kept no records whatsoever about the possible fathers of these children, rarely identified the mother, and will not even disclose the names of the families who took these children in and cared for them, sometimes for years. Because of the Catholic 'Church,' so much genealogical information remains a closely-held secret, a mystery. Even though civil laws were written, circa 1860-1875, which attempted to stop these church-imposed tragedies, even today the 'church' is reluctant to allow researchers to see any records, much less allow them all to be published. If the 'Church' were not so ashamed of these past policies and behaviors, surely their records would have been opened to the public long ago.
An essential part of my family tree ends at 1875 -- the year of my Grandfather's birth. I know the city in Sicily in which he was born only because some amazing researchers have indexed civil marriage records in another large Sicilian city. Church records are so much more difficult to obtain.
Until the Catholic 'Church' agrees to full disclosure, there is not much point in engaging in the potentially interesting and intriguing hobby of genealogy.
a simply wasy to do genealogy