100 YEARS AGO

The trouble of compiling pedigrees and their unmanageable size led me to devise a method of recording relationships in a form suitable to my own particular wants. As it promises to answer exceedingly well, and to be of more extending utility, I venture to publish it. The system of relationships between those who live or have lived in a long-established community is wide in extent, of indefinite depth, and interlaced in all directions. The problem is how to arrange its records so that when any individual is selected as a point of departure, it shall be easy to trace his relationship in every direction, whether ascending, descending, or collateral, so far as materials exist. The representation of such a system is wholly beyond the powers of a chart, but its object can be attained by breaking it up into what will be called “Family Groups,” each of which slightly overlaps those with which it is immediately connected. A family group, in the sense used here, consists of (1) a parental couple, (2) all their sons and daughters, (3) the wives and husbands of them. Their names are supposed to be written on one page of a register, and the group, as a whole, to be defined by the No. of that page. The group is also... indexed under the joined surnames of the parental couple.

Francis Galton

From Nature 23 April 1903.

50 YEARS AGO

New terms of grant were offered to nine research associations for the next five-year period... The new block grant for the British Hat and Allied Feltmakers' Research Association for 1952–54 will be £7,000 a year, conditional on £10,000 from the industry, with up to £5,000 on the £100 for £100 basis. The Association reports advances in the knowledge of mercuric carrotting of rabbit fur, which are leading to a better understanding of the process, and an investigation has been started on the effect of different types of dyeing machine on the quality of felt produced. For the two years 1952–53, the British Food Manufacturing Industries Research Association will receive a block grant of £9,000 a year, conditional on £20,000 from industry, with up to a further £6,000 on the customary basis... the Association is investigating the graining and rheological behaviour of chocolate, which are important in controlling the physical character of the chocolate and in preventing 'bloom'.

From Nature 25 April 1953.