Revisiting the Black family tree

[Sharon]

No: HPFGUIDX 118283



Alshain:
> For all that pure-bloods are said to be rare, there seems to be a 
lot 
> of them dotted throughout the books. <snip> Unfortunately I don't 
have a 
> degree in genetics, so I can't tell how many generations of 
> intermarriage it would take for thirty-ish families to produce a 
gene 
> pool so uniform that fresh blood would become necessary. What I'm 
> dead certain about, however, is that the WW must have its Capulets 
> and its Montagues, families that wouldn't interbreed even if their 
> survival depended on it.


Probably the case indeed. But just because the families are all 
interrelated doesn't mean they're all resting on the weight of a 
single tree trunk.  I prefer to think of the entire family tree 
concept (not just in the Wizarding World but life in general) as a 
forest of trees, where the trunks and lower halves (more recent 
family members) are completely on their own and by themselves.  It's 
only when you get to the upper branches, farther from the ground (and 
farther back into the family's ancestry) that the branches become 
tangled.

I mean, look at it this way - if you go back far enough, everyone on 
the *planet* is related.  You might be a cousin of mine!  It's just 
that some families - such as the Blacks, apparently - are more 
conscious of their ancestry and family members than others.  Sirius, 
for instance, knows who his second cousins are (even knowing the 
definition of second-cousin-one-removed).  How many people actually 
know that sort of thing?


>Alshain: 
> At the same time JKR retains some mystery; if the Black family tree 
> isn't conclusive, other pureblood players can still enter the scene 
> with or without family connections. 

I think they still can.  As far as we know, Snape isn't closely 
related to the Blacks - Harry would have noticed his name straight 
off, along with Draco's.  And I would assume that unless someone 
mentions it, any family connection there is to the Blacks would be so 
distant that it's not worth bothering with.  Sirius didn't bring up 
Arthur and Molly as, "And oh yes, I'm related to them and them and 
them and them."  It was more of an explanatory thing, a "for 
instance".

--az