Darwin may have lost his own children due to ill effects of inbreeding

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMay 6 2010

Charles Darwin whose theories on evolution have been the basis of all that we know about the evolution of mankind and genetics may have lost his own progeny to inbreeding says a new study.

Tim Berra of Ohio State University, Mansfield led a study which examined 25 families and 176 children across four generations of the Darwin family. They have found a strong link between death of children and inbreeding in the Darwin/Wedgwood family line. They found a higher score of what is termed as “inbreeding coefficient”. The study appears in the May 2010 issue of the journal BioScience.

Darwin had married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and Darwin's mother was the daughter of third cousins. The Wedgewood family had several marriages among cousins. Darwin went on to father 10 children (four girls and six boys between 1839 and 1858.), three of which did not reach adulthood. Annie Darwin who was the eldest daughter died at the age of 10 with tuberculosis. Annie’s sister Mary died as a baby at the age of 23 days. Charles Waring probably died of scarlet fever as a toddler and is supposed to have had some developmental abnormalities. The three of the remaining seven who reached adulthood and had long term marriages remained childless. The researchers also said that three of Darwin’s sons were fellows of the Royal Society and were knighted by Queen Victoria.

Darwin himself had concerns regarding inbreeding and the health of his children. He had also urged that the British Census of 1871 add a question related to inter-marriage so that this issue could be explored in detail.

The study says that inbreeding could not only be linked to developmental anomalies and infertility but also decreased immunity and susceptibility to infectious diseases like tuberculosis. Researchers concluded that inter-marriage “could be involved in the high childhood mortality experienced by Darwin progeny” and that Darwin's own fears over the effects of interbreeding in his family “appear to have been justified.”