Nope, that’s the bitch about X-linked recessive genes…they have a way of sticking around due to the female carriers. It doesn’t matter if all the affected males were to die before puberty–they’re not the ones necessarily passing along the gene anyway.
DM & WTW Potts, in their work Queen Victoria’s Gene: Haemophilia and the Royal Family, note the difficulty of answering this question because:
The authors suggest that
They note that Paul-Alexandre Weiller (son of Olimpia, daughter of the Infanta Beatriz, daughter of Queen Ena of Spain, daughter of Princess Beatrice) died in 1975, aged 5, of what was said to be ‘un problema de sangre’. They speculate that this could have been haemophilia, although this was denied by the family.
The Wikipedia article doubts that the gene is still present in Victoria’s descendants
but notes that there is still a chance that the gene may remain among Princess Beatrice’s descendants.
Obviously the choke point is even narrower if, as is typical with peerages, the title can’t be held by or descend through a female. It does surprise me that so many peerages go extinct, because, unless I’m misunderstanding, that means not only that the current holder dies without sons, but also any male cousins or uncles who descend from the original grantee also died without male heirs. What seems a rather extreme example is the Knighthood of Glin, one of a handful of hereditary Irish knighthoods. The last holder died only a couple of months ago, the Wikipedia article saying he had no sons. It’s surprising to me that either there was no extant cousin who could have inherited, or else other direct male descendants (i.e. cousins) were eligible to inherit.
I have more: Painter William Hogarth and his wife were unable to have children. I believe they did have foster children? Jan Vermeer and Mrs. Vermeer did have fifteen children, but I have no idea if there are any descendants.
The subject came up again on IMDB where someone was wondering why Natalie Wood’s two daughters don’t have their own kids. They are in their 30s and 40s now. Some posters rolled their eyes and replied that some folks don’t want children/can’t have children/etc. And the poster said it is a pity Natalie’s genes didn’t pass on. Yikes, and I just made this thread because it was trivia and not because, “man what a pity famous folks didn’t get to have their talented genes passed on to next generations!”
BTW, I told my mother about how King Henry VIII was so desperate to have legitimate heirs and had to remarry over and over. She was wondering why he couldn’t defy the pope by declaring himself Head of State AND have several wives at once so that there would be many chances at a male heir. The way it was done in Asian nations and Muslim nations. Teehee.
reading up on Georges Seurat who died possibly from diptheria and that his sons died from it in infancy possibly as well. Just reality that folks did not expect to have many kids that outlived them and to have families of their own.
While Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney each have five grandchildren, George Harrison’s son Dhani and John Lennon’s sons Julian and Sean have failed to have any so far.
The only Gabor sister who ever had children was Zsa Zsa, who has a daughter, Francesca Hilton (yes, those Hiltons).
Francesca is currently in her 60’s, and never had children of her own. When she goes, the entire Gabor family will have died out.
Unless she goes before Zsa Zsa.
A little Googling reveals that Ringo & Paul both have SIX grandchildren now. Still none for John & George.