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Two boys, as alike as brothers.
They were not brothers at all. They were 3rd cousins. Their only relationship was that they shared one pair of great-great-grandparents (out of eight pairs of great-great-grandparents.) I spotted the amazing likeness of the boys at a family reunion. That set me to thinking, and to doing some digging into old family photographs, and into tracing relatives who had never previously heard of me.
The two boys, who are as alike brothers, had inherited their common looks from a single great-great-grandmother. Possibly it was a matter of "strong genes", or perhaps it was a matter of chance. Whatever it was, that single lady had contributed one-sixteenth of their genes, or 7% of their blood, but nearly 97% of their looks. The boys' surnames were, of course, completely different to each other's, and to their great-great-grandmother's when she was a girl.
Surnames are the same as "sire-names", or the name passed from grandfather to father, and from father to children. It only tells a tiny part of our (yours and mine) rich genetic inheritance going back to when our Anglo-Saxon ancestors sailed from Sweden to invade England's green and pleasant land. We can hardly try to trace our family further back than the 6th century AD. In those days, men were kings and warriors, priests and judges, craftsmen and merchants. Only men made history; women only made babies.
Fully half of your ancestors were women, who started life with a different surname to your own (except for intermarriage, which often happened in the older days.) Most of your male ancestors, all apart from your father's father's father, and so on, would similarly have had different surnames. Charles Darwin, the founder of the theory of evolution, suspected that there was a good reason for children to resemble their father. Women always know who their children are, and look after them no matter whom they resemble. Men can never be quite so sure, and will tend to favour children who look like his side of the family. Far be it from me to argue against one of the greatest scientists in history, but I can only point to the example of the two boys who are alike as brothers.
We are blood-relatives, you and I. That is as beyond reasonable doubt as anything ever heard in Court. If you are reading this website, and you have family links to Britain, then we are virtually certain to be related along many paths of intermarriage. It is only because female family names, from before their marriage, tend to be forgotten after a very few generations, that relationships are not more easily discovered. If you think that it must be a female writing this, I can only say that I might well be a man who has realised that genes are more important than names. Similarly, I will leave you guessing as to my present surname, because by blood I am as much a Smith as a Jones, as much a Johnson as a Jackson, and as much a Miller as a Moore.
The family reunion mentioned above was a sad event. It was to commemorate the death of a dearly loved cousin. There was yet more sadness for the family. Some of them discovered for the first time that some of the family's children were in desparate need, because of their father's illness. There are some ways to help a charitable trust that cost little or no money. (Building this website was one of them.) There are a couple of ways you can help without spending money, and with hardly any effort. If you buy things by mail-order anyway, there is a family shop coming soon, where all profits will go to the family charitable trust. If you do contribute to charities in any case, perhaps you might consider a donation to help children who are your own blood-relatives.
Visitors' favourite pages on this website:-
Family Children's Educational Trust
Smith mail-order Pharmacy
Smith Family Crest, Coat of Arms, and Shield
Smith Genealogy