Out Of Their Trees - Two Family Connections

Just this Christmas, sitting in a pub, I had a discussion with my ex on evolution and the Biblical Genesis. I'm a Christian and he describes himself as a pagan by nature, so we have different - but not necessarily opposing - beliefs. As a geologist by qualification I have no problem with NOT taking the (Jewish/Babylonian) Genesis story as literal truth. But that's a debate for other places and other people to discuss elsewhere. But it reminded me of the struggle my distant cousin, Charles Darwin, had when he came up with the theory of evolution in the first place. It affected him so much that it took him 20 years to make his mind up about publishing it.

Through his father Darwin is related to my father, both being descended from the Alveys. The Alveys have lived for centuries along the Trent valley. The Darwins themselves lived at Elston Hall for a while.

Next week sees the bicentennary of Charles Darwin's birth. Lots of events are going on worldwide (John Lynch, an American gay professor and leading Darwinism scholar, is appearing all over the place!), but there's nowt happening at Wollaton! My family are making the most of what little is on offer to celebrate our famous "uncle".

It's the Darwin link which got me interested in "celebrity" and famous ancestries when I was a teenager. Last week I found out I was distantly related (on my mother's side this time) to local gay writer Samuel Butler (1835-1902). Samuel was a son of the rector of Langar who disapproved of his son's choice of vocation as an artist, and this was a cause of bad feeling all their lives. What would the rector have though if he'd known his son was gay? But it's Butler's writings which have made him well-known, not his art.As it happens, Butler brings us back to Darwin.

During the 1870s/80s Butler wrote several books arguing against Darwin's theories. Scientists regarded Samuel as a mere idiosyncratic amateur - "... the abuse that was heaped upon me was more unmeasured than I have had to encounter", Butler wrote. But today evolution seems so obvious, and has led to many geneticists (quite a few of them gay, like Dean Hamer) to try to find a "gay gene". (I've still got a pair of gay jeans I've not worn for years!)