Height Correlations Among Kin: Shared Environment and Shared Genes

Jan Kok, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

Stature results from one’s inherited genes, diseases and living conditions in the first two decades of live. High correlations of height among siblings suggest relatively good environmental conditions to reach their ‘genetic potential’. We also expect that higher SES groups will have suffered less from adverse conditions and show relative high brother correlations. But research into socio-economic variation and long-term trends in sibling correlations is rather limited and these hypotheses have hardly been tested with historical data. In this research I link complete (descendant) genealogies of six rural families to records of conscripts (age 19) from 1813 to 1940. The data allow me to not only link brothers, but also fathers to sons, grandfathers to grandsons, uncles to nephews and cousins to each other. One of the questions to be explored is: is there a difference between paternal and maternal lines in the strength of kin correlations? And do the correlations increase over time?

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 213. Demographic Response to Economic Circumstances