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SummaryUsing lists of names of male personal telephone subscribers, isonymy was calculated within and between 29 contiguous areas in a north-to-south line extending 210 km south of Grindsted, Denmark. Each area shared some surname(s) with every other area. Isonymy was high across both the present and past borders of Denmark with Germany and was consistently lower in areas beyond 160 km south of Grindsted. Relative isonymy between areas was also smaller on average south of the present border than north of it, and smaller still for pairs of areas spanning the border. This is partly accounted for by decreases in isonymy with distance, but the slope of the logistic regression on distance is greater for the northern moiety than the southern one. Most of these findings can be traced to the influence of common surnames ending in ‘sen’, the distribution of which tends to correlate highly with isonymy. Such surnames tend to be of recent origin and to be very frequent and hence highly polygenic. Thus much of the heterogeneity is explained by surname history rather than genetic heterogeneity.

SummaryStudies of parent–child correlations in stature require data which can be viewed as random samples of some general population and which are large enough to allow partition of the variable and evaluation of non-genetic and genetic influences. In a sample of 4336 individuals drawn from a cohort of all persons born in England, Scotland and Wales in 1 week in 1958, the correlation of statures of the males with their fathers, the females with their fathers, the males with their mothers and the females with their mothers were 0·36, 0·43 and 0·41 and 0·47 respectively at age 16 of the offspring and 0·41, 0·41, 0·47 and 0·46 respectively at age 23. Allowance for the occupational social class of the fathers lowers the correlations, but in no case by more than 5%. Allowance for the occupational class achieved by the offspring by age 23 has little effect on the correlations.

SummaryData on grandparental surnames were obtained from children in 45 Italo-Albanesi villages in nine provinces of southern Italy and Sicily. Concordance of surnames (isonymy) and inbreeding by village were estimated for each province and on the total sample. Total mean isonymy is 0·0251. The weighted mean inbreeding coefficient, and its random and non-random components are 0·0063, 0·0024 and 0·0039, respectively. Isonymy values are similar to those of rural Italian villages except that Alpine and some Appennine villages appear to be more isolated and inbred.

Analyses of height variation using the 1970 UK national cohort study (12,508 children at age 10 and 5470 at age 16) found clear evidence that children of higher socioeconomic status (as measured by social class, crowding, tenure, type of accommodation, income and receipt of government financial assistance) were on average taller than children of lower socioeconomic status but there was little or no difference in average stature between children living in urban or rural areas. Significant differences in height remained for most of the variables after removing the effects of father’s social class suggesting that reliance on social class per se to explain height variation is inadvisable.

The surnames of the 3443 males registered to vote in Kidlington in 1977 yield a Coefficient of Relationship by Isonymy of 0·000564 {Ri=Σ(n(n–1))/2 N(N–1), in which n=the number of men of each surname and N=Σn}. Those of the four wards separately average 0·000722. However, if one includes only one male of any one surname in each residence, the values are, respectively, 0·000534 and 0·000535. That is, the only structure seen between the two levels is in the influence of men of the same surname resident in the same house. An analysis of relationship by residence on the same street yields a value of Ri somewhat higher than that for the ward as a whole, however, suggesting that even within a ward there may be a tendency for the house of relatives occasionally to lie close together.

SummaryAnalysis of a further four samples of first names in the index of marriages registered in England and Wales in the first 3 months of 1975 support the claim that there is no significant difference of ‘between’ versus ‘within’ registration district Ri. Since given names show none of the localisation seen in surnames, the surname geography is ascribable to genetic rather than cultural factors of personal naming. The correct formulations for coefficient of relationship by isonymy are given.

SummaryThe geographic distribution of the Smiths and Joneses among all persons married in England and Wales in 3 months of 1975 showed well defined frequency clines comparable to those of blood group distributions. Polynomial regressions of relative frequencies of these surnames on latitude and longitude account for 12% and 36% of the variation among registration districts in frequency of Smiths and Joneses, respectively.

SummaryThe surnames of all adult residents of five neighbouring communities in the fenlands of Cambridgeshire are compared with each other and with those of the 165,533 persons married in England and Wales in the period January to March 1975. Among the villages the average coefficient of relationship by isonymy (Ri) is 76 × 10−5. The villages nearer together may have a tendency to higher values of Ri: the correlation of Ri with the natural log of distance between villages is −0·49, p = 0·07. The surnames of the five villages give a weighted average Ri with the whole area about 25 miles of 54 × 10−5 and with a zone 25–40 miles away of 45 × 10−5, whereas Ri with all England and Wales is 42 × 10−5. Rare surnames show a much sharper gradient and contribute approximately twice as much to the coefficient in the 25–40 mile zone and six times as much within 25 miles as found with all England and Wales. Moderately frequent surnames and even common surnames show the same gradient, but to a lesser degree. In the part of Cambridgeshire studied, the present distribution of surnames indicates a slight but appreciable local isolation, with the degree of relationship decreasing from among local villages to that between the villages and all England and Wales. This pattern is consistent with the theory of genetic inbreeding based on distance but there is considerable variability in individual instances.

SummaryThe relationship between anthropometrics and three measures of Darwinian fitness—number of surviving children, number of living siblings and marital status—was sought in a population practising no contraception. The pattern suggestive of stabilizing selection was evident for one dimension, destabilizing selection for another dimension, and directional selection for yet another. The dimensions studied were those least intercorrelated one with another. Stabilizing selection for human physical characteristics may not be a universal phenomenon.