We all know about family trees and the phylogenetic (evolutionary) tree showing the branching and development of species. The meaning and construction of these trees of des cent are pretty clear and straightforward.
But there are other “family trees” that show the influence and development og groups or organizations or ideas. These aren’t literal family trees with biological factors indicating a definite line of descent, but more complex ones in which it’s conceivable to have more than one line of influence. In principle, they can get awfully complicated. But I’ve seen them drawn with only the main influences shown, and the results are interesting and fascinating. Here are some examples
The Family Tree of Laser Companies – back in the 1980s an optics magazine showed the descent of companies (or divisions of large companies) that manufactured lasers. You could say that one group descenbded from another group if the got a lot of their personnel from an expiring company, or if they inherited the intellectual rights and patents from another bunch. I’d be curious to see what it would look like today.
Family Tree of Rock Bands – this was a pretty large and densely worded poster that showed how groups broke up and gave rise to other groups. Pretty interesting, especially to someone like me who hadn’t followed such things, and was amazed at which names I recognized had played in entirely new (to me) groups with other names I knew.
Family Tree of Religion – I had one of these in a chart comparing different religions that I got from the Missionary Book Store in Salt Lake City (so it looked at things from the point of view of the LDS). In the main, though, I agreed with it. Certain religions clearly formed from people who had previously been in another religion, or drew their main beliefs from previous structures. I suspect this one could spawn a lot of fights, though.
Have you seen any others? I can imagine lots of different “trees” – a History of Philosophies, for instance. Or a “family tree” of musical instruments, or firearms. Just like the family tree of laser manufacturers, I could easily see one for computer manufacturers.
The fights spawned the religions, at least in the Judeo-Christian world. Christianity was a ‘reform’ of Judaism, Protestantism was a ‘reform’ of Catholicism, and the Protestants immediately disagreed about what needed reformation, arguments that continue to this day.
Your marriage is legitimate because Father Joe was a legitimate priest.
Father Joe was legitimate because he was ordained by Bishop Bob.
Bishop Bob was legitimate because he was consecrated by Bishop Bill.
Bishop Bill was legitimate because he was consecrated by . . . .
. . . . who was consecrated by Saint Andrew, who was consecrated by Jesus.
There is disagreement over why this should be so.
There is the “continuity of teaching” theory: the student learned from a teacher who was qualified.
There is the “transmission of Grace” theory: some metaphysical quality is physically transferred from the ordainer to the ordained.
If you are a priest in one church, and you convert to another church, do you need to be re-ordained? It depends. Church A may recognize Church B’s succession, but that may or may not be reciprocated.
Pete Frame created many of these, and eventually published a collection in book form. There’s an example here, the Eagles family tree. Clicking on the individual panels will expand them.
I’ve seen small, independent churches schism. I wonder if, sociologically speaking, there is a number of church members that is effectively too small to schism. Mathematically, that number is one, but that’s unsatisfying.
Note that, while the branchings shown here are fairly well established as far as I can tell, the hypothesis that all of the world’s languages come from one single original language (“Proto-World”) hasn’t been demonstrated, and probably never will.
I’d dispute some of the branches, and of course there’s lots more since then.
And my niece just had to do a genogram, a family tree of mental issues. She asked me what she should put me down for. I said, “flatulence.” I am afraid to ask what she actually said. Is “Dad jokes” in the DSM-5?
