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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
In Volume VII, 1958 of the A. Ge. Me. Ge a research on the dermatoglyphics of an incestuous family (5 children, their mother, grandmother and grandfather, the latter also being the father of the children) was published. The present paper deals with the morphological features of the face, i.e. the soft parts of the mouth and chin region, of the eye region and of the external nose of the same family.
Theoretically speaking, in a case like this— owning to the increased amount of common alleles—an unusually close phenotypical resemblance among the children might be expected, as, in fact, demonstrated by the morphological analysis. The characters subject to changes by age represent an almostt step by step development and this is confirmed by the two observations carried out in 1934 and 1939.
Considering the variations caused by age, the children don't exceed, generally, the difference of monozytic twins.
Regarding the phenotypical similarity to the adults the theoretical expectation has been more than confirmed. There are close affinities with the grandfather and the mother of the children resembling him. Only a few features are in common with the grandmother and these, for the most part, are features typical of earlier stages of development. As some traits of this kind are characteristic for the grandmother these resemblances are considered to be of a temporary nature only.
The study of the dermatoglyphics revealed a surprising conformity between the children, their mother and their grandfather, while the grandmother differed. In addition two of the children showed a few widely divergent rare traits. Compared with the dermatoglyphics the isolated minor deviations in the morphological characters of the face seem of no importance. On the whole one is impressed how rapidly ancestral loss (« Ahnenverlust ») can lead to an extensive phenotypical homogeneity in a family.