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Iceland Is So Inbred It Needs a Website to Avoid Incest
Gizmodo ^ | Feb 6, 2012

Posted on 02/11/2012 9:52:19 PM PST by Slings and Arrows

When your society has inhabited a small, remote island for countless generations and boasts a population of only 300,000, the odds of having sex with a relative are significant. Luckily, Icelanders now have a handy tool to avoid family-sex.

Íslendingabók—meaning "book of Icelanders"—is an online incest avoidance search engine. Plug in your name and that of a potential mate, and the site searches a genealogical database to see how closely you're related. It's likely that you'll have some overlap many generations back—in which case you're probably safe from mutant children. But if you share great-grandparents, you might want to reconsider your Nordic hookup.

But there's a twist! As GlobalPost reports, new research says sexing with a distant cousin is actually beneficial for fertility, as your genes are more comptable than someone from the other side of the planet. So, avoid creepy incest, but seek out good incest. Iceland—constantly at the top of quality of life lists, and an easy place to sleep with an attractive cousin. [GlobalPost via TNW]


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; History; Society
KEYWORDS: bjork; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; iceland; napl
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To: Slings and Arrows
“Somebody in West Virginia just slapped his forehead...”

From our Strange but True Department: West Virginia doesn't allow first-cousin marriages.

21 posted on 02/11/2012 10:32:19 PM PST by decal (I'm not rude, I don't suffer fools is all.)
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To: decal

Yeah, and Illinois doesn’t allow political corruption.


22 posted on 02/11/2012 10:34:30 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: Slings and Arrows
I think I read that Iceland doesn’t have Family last names just Whatever-son if it is a boy and something else if it was a girl. If that is correct it would add to the difficulty
23 posted on 02/11/2012 10:35:38 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Would you sing if someone sucked YOU up the vacuum cleaner hose?)
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To: davisfh

It wouldn’t matter, unless they were making donations or withdrawals from a sperm bank.


24 posted on 02/11/2012 10:38:41 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

I’ve heard that too. Probably a lot of folks named with the local equivalent of “John Johnson.”


25 posted on 02/11/2012 10:38:41 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: GeronL

Iceland could surpass Hong Kong...


26 posted on 02/11/2012 10:40:37 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Slings and Arrows; Harmless Teddy Bear

I knew a couple in college that had two kids. I believe the wife took the husband’s last name. His name was something like Frer Thorson, and the wife’s name was Inga Thorson.

Their little boy was Thor Frerson, and the daughter was something Ingandaughter (or however one spells daughter in Iceland - dotter?) Pretty confusing.


27 posted on 02/11/2012 10:45:28 PM PST by 21twelve
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To: Slings and Arrows

Of course one first cousin marriage every 5 generations is about equivalent to a 5th cousin marriage every generation. The Pharaohs had dynasties of several hundred years based on sibling marriage. The recessive genes would be filtered out rather quickly by infanticide. The Hawaiian royalty also had sibling marriage. We are all pretty closely related, with our DNA being more than 99% common just by being human. It is likely that some of our visual diversity is due to a different corps of parasites living in/on us, and not so much our DNA variation.


28 posted on 02/11/2012 10:45:34 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: Slings and Arrows
“...a lot of folks named with the local equivalent of ‘John Johnson’.”

Or Jane Johnsdaughter, as the case may be - Denmark only fairly recently dropped the practice themselves.

29 posted on 02/11/2012 10:47:25 PM PST by decal (I'm not rude, I don't suffer fools is all.)
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To: 21twelve

the Russians do something similar, with your middle name being derived from your parent’s first name, but with last names being inherited from the father.


30 posted on 02/11/2012 10:48:07 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: donmeaker
The Pharaohs had dynasties of several hundred years based on sibling marriage. The recessive genes would be filtered out rather quickly by infanticide.

Hmmm...there are counterexamples.

31 posted on 02/11/2012 10:49:51 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

There’s two solutions to this. One is to be like the British Royal Family. Another is to learn 400 words of Icelandic, fly out to Iceland and celebrate diversity in a good way.


32 posted on 02/11/2012 10:51:54 PM PST by Darren McCarty (Rick Santorum in the primary)
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To: donmeaker

My dad had his dad’s name as a middle name, I have my dad’s as my middle, and my son has mine - but we ain’t commies! It is pretty odd (to me anyway) how they keep track of things what with changing last names and all. Although I guess back in the days of the Soviet Union that may have been a good thing!


33 posted on 02/11/2012 10:55:50 PM PST by 21twelve
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Dang, where I come from, Iceland is a codeword for “Alabama”.

White crackers of the frozen north UNITE!!!!!


34 posted on 02/11/2012 11:01:17 PM PST by ak267
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To: davisfh
How does the “same-sex” crowd handle incest...or does it matter?

Obviously, the latter, since same-sex sex doesn't have genomic consequences.

35 posted on 02/11/2012 11:05:30 PM PST by cynwoody
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To: Slings and Arrows

Cousins are good for practice.


36 posted on 02/11/2012 11:09:52 PM PST by SC Swamp Fox (Aim small, miss small.)
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To: SC Swamp Fox

Yee-haw.


37 posted on 02/11/2012 11:29:27 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

Wow! You learn something every day!

I didn’t know there is good incest, and I’m from Missippy! I need to ask around about that.

*face palm*

OT, but I flew over Greenland and Iceland a few years ago. Those ice bergs must be huge! They were very prominent at 40,000 feet.


38 posted on 02/12/2012 12:13:30 AM PST by dixiechick2000 (This hobbit is looking for her pitchfork...God help the GOP if I find it.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

Knew some Eritrean people. The kids take the dad’s first name as their last name.


39 posted on 02/12/2012 12:21:51 AM PST by beaversmom
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To: dixiechick2000
I didn’t know there is good incest, and I’m from Missippy! I need to ask around about that.

Just ask a good Democrat.

40 posted on 02/12/2012 12:28:31 AM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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