When Genealogy Gets Distorted KRISTIN E. HARLEY

ustralian-American journalist and linguist Christine Kenneally’s sec- Aond book is a cutting-edge blend The Invisible History of the Human Race: How of molecular and population genetics, DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our social science, and artefactual records. Futures. By Christine Kenneally. Viking (Penguin While not a book specifically about Group), New York, 2014. ISBN 9780698176294. pseudoscience, Kenneally’s comprehen- 368 pp. Hardcover, $18.98; U.S. Kindle Edition, sive research demonstrates that, alas, $11.99. wherever science is, ignorance makes inroads. The Invisible History of the Human Race details how genealogy was distorted and misapplied to obscure facts and to oppress people. Genealogy as a pseudoscience is most obvious in Genealogy as a pseudo- the “racial science” of the Third Reich, Denialism there was also—what which required all good Germans to science is most obvious in Kenneally calls “silence passed down.” demonstrate no Jewish inbreeding the “racial science” of the During the transport of convicts from from the year 1800 on. Inspired by Third Reich, which required Britain to , the British aris- tocracy believed that criminal behavior eugenicist Madison Grant (and not by all good Germans to Charles Darwin), Hitler exterminated was inherited through “defective fam- the “unfit.” For those not condemned, demonstrate no Jewish ilies.” As a result, fearing the convict the Lebensborn and the coldly bureau- inbreeding from the year stain and wanting respectable lives in cratic Reich’s Genealogical Authority 1800 on. Inspired by a land declared a “den of thieves,” the produced anxiety, misery, and shame eugenicist Madison Tasmanians willingly whitewashed that lasted for decades and caused their stories and invented out- some Germans to shun any research Grant (and not by Charles rageous tales of their “proper” origins into family history as a slippery slope. Darwin), Hitler extermi- instead. “Everyone had a vested interest Today, conspiracy “truthers” engage in nated the “unfit.” in forgetting,” Kenneally quotes a local a similar fishing expedition to demon- historian. Later, when having a colorful strate the supposed “unfitness” of background became more socially ac- Barack Obama as president. with the most impoverished areas of ceptable, respectable Tasmanians who However, the effects of suppressing that continent. In Benin, where chil- had built successful lives were shocked genealogical information also had de- dren of nine or ten regularly say, “He to discover that they were, of course, bilitating effects on the psychologies can sell you” or “He can make you the descendants of exiles to a penal col- of orphans in “boys’ depots” and on disappear” to warn against someone, ony. in Mao’s China, who in both distrust of local authorities—and even Kenneally reminds us that a young cases were denied access to their heri- of extended family members—is so Charles Darwin visited the port of Syd- tage. However much the authorities de- ubiquitous that distrust was essentially ney on the Beagle and declared Aus- clared ancestral records as unimportant, “passed down” in families, according to tralia a rehabilitative success. Though it turned out to be a primal urge to seek Kenneally. It sounds Lamarckist, but it she does not draw this parallel, isn’t out siblings, parents, and . is no coincidence that in these suspi- this Tasmanian “silence passed down” The various slave trades that con- cious, dysfunctional cultures, ancestors about their convict ancestors analogous vulsed Africa likewise disrupted whole had, at the height of slavery, deliber- to the human family’s ignorance of its genealogical legacies. The communities ately sold their neighbors or even rela- own genealogy, via evolution, before that participated in it correlate today tives into bondage. the publication of Origin of Species?

60 Volume 39 Issue 2 | Skeptical Inquirer And isn’t the invention of “respect- project’s ultimate aim: posthumous cultures. To quote Kenneally, the inter- able” Tasmanian ancestors rather like baptism of the dead into the Church of section of biology and history is “com- our creationist Adam and Eve? An odd Latter-Day Saints. (Supposedly Mor- plicated and recursive.” parallel there is, too, in Darwin calling mons “offer” baptism to dead relatives In this must-read book, I was fre- the discovery of “like only as a “choice,” but such invitations quently reminded of The Extended Phe- confessing a murder.” have included Anne Frank and Simon notype, ’s definitive Indifference toward genealogy was Wiesenthal, offending Jews and stok- work, though Kenneally takes us much a feature of the early United States, ing religious conflict.) closer to understanding how evolution in which Ralph Waldo Emerson de- Belief even influences how genetics intersects with human behavior, and manded, “Why should we grope among is seen, for an error in DNA interpre- with culture, which for too long has the dry bones of the past?” Yet today, tation mistakenly identified Thomas been viewed as separate from the nat- genealogy is hugely popular in the U.S., Robinson, briefly a media darling until ural sciences and from animal behav- in part due to new appreciation for debunked, as a descendant of Genghis ior—an irrational idea perpetuated even smaller, common histories of ordinary Khan. Scientific data, like historical by some scientists. Christine Kenneally people. Beliefs change ideas about what data, need appropriate context for true has emerged as an innovative thinker, constitutes legitimate research. producing again an astonishing and nec- understanding. And yet, we can trace n More surprisingly, genealogy has family surnames or resemblance among essary interdisciplinary work. been completely dismissed by some human faces alongside genetic legacies, Kristin E. Harley is a certified archivist, scientists as invalid, seen as narcissis- or see how sexist ideas about women or a librarian, and indexer. She wrote “Informa- tic “me-search” or mere heraldry. As tendency toward big families are “passed tion Literacy and Conspiracy Theories” in in her first book The First Word, where down” more strongly in families than in our January/February 2012 issue. she confronted the reluctance of many scientists to investigate the evolution of language, Kenneally points out that There’s much more available on our website! the beliefs of scientists about what ac- tually constitutes science have unfor- tunately closed off whole avenues of Skep ti cal In quir er evidence until now. She successfully www.csicop.org. demonstrates that genealogy, when tri- angulated with DNA analysis and with historical artifacts, can yield valuable Here’s just a sample of what you’ll find: insights into patterns of human be- The Kaspar Hauser Mystery havior: invasions, isolation, even min- Canadian Romeo Vitelli offers his take on the enigma of the er’s strikes. “Researchers,” she writes, mysterious boy Kaspar Hauser. “did not examine the economic conse- quences of elements like trust and hate The Yukon’s Bigfoot Bears because of a belief that these things Joe Nickell examines persistence of Bigfoot beliefs, noting that Bigfoot buffs are didn’t matter beyond . . . individuals.” active almost everywhere, including the sparsely populated Yukon. Beliefs also influence the accuracy of research. The Mormon Church, which cherishes family history and strives to reproduce it faithfully, is microfilming, transcribing, and digitizing whole cen- sus records. These are stored in a cli- mate-controlled facility at the Granite Mountain Record Vault according to archival best practices, with copies in branch offices around the world. The Church provides these records to any family historian in order to do “good for the world.” Though this pleases For more online columns, features, and special content, visit www.csicop.org. me, an archivist, I am repulsed by the Skeptical Inquirer | March/April 2015 61