Families
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Your Surname Should Already Be Extinct
Francis Galton was a Victorian statistician who measured practically everything he could reach. In the 1870s he noticed something peculiar about the…
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Your Surname Is a Medieval Spreadsheet Column
Somewhere around the 12th and 13th centuries, England's clerks and tax collectors ran into a problem. There were, depending on the village,…
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The Government Can’t Agree What a Family Is (And Neither Can Itself)
Picture this. You're living in a house with a partner and two kids, one of whom is from a previous relationship. To…
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The Cabinet Meets Every Evening At Six
Parliament has a Speaker, a whip, a formal division lobby, centuries of procedural precedent. Your family has a kitchen table, someone who…
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The Permanent Referendum Nobody Called
In a real democracy, you at least get to go home. The polls close, the counting starts, and for a year or…
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The Roll of the Dice That Made You Family
Here is something to know before your next family Christmas. The person sitting across from you – the one you've shared a…
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The Settings Nobody Chose For You
Somewhere around the age of four, you stopped learning about your family and started *becoming* it. Not the facts of it –…
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The Family Form Is Still Being Filled In
Somewhere in a Somerset records office, there is a register that began in 1837. Before that year, if you wanted proof that…