Who do you resemble in your family
tree? Anyone, no one, sometimes one person and then seemingly at other times another person?
I have often been
told that I look somewhat like my dad while my sisters look more like my mom. I
never thought of my husband as resembling his father until a picture taken many
years ago, in quasi-profile, of my husband, his father, and his paternal
grandmother was taken. You couldn’t miss the resemblance, yet, when you talk
with them, it just didn’t jump out at you. At times in his life, my son has resembled my
sister and my brother-in-law! Two
different sides of his family tree. As
my nephew grows older, where he once strongly resembled his father, he more and
more resembles my sister, his mother. My aunt as a young woman looked like my
grandmother (her mother) when she was a young woman, though, when older, neither
looked like the other?
Rambling on this
came about after I read Who do you look like? DNA and family resemblance across generations.
Resemblance
is the basis of our perception of race and ethnicity. It is
also a favourite topic of conversation at family gatherings – proclaimed where
it is strikingly apparent, or perhaps whispered where it is lacking.
Families generally like it when their male biological offspring look like their
fathers and females look like their mothers, perhaps with the odd feature
thrown in to mark the other half’s creative stamp (“He’s the spitting image of
you, but he’s got my eyes”). Some may start life looking like one parent,
then ‘morph’ into the other as they get older. Certain facial features
may perpetuate for generations, or, fascinatingly, even skip generations.
What family historian hasn’t felt a thrill when they unearth an old photograph
of a long forgotten ancestor with a distinct family resemblance? DNA
never forgets.
Do look at all the
examples. What do you think of the
seemingly unrelated doppelgangers at the end?
Are there strong "family" resemblances in your family?
Have who people resembled morphed through time in your family tree?
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