So if you look at a family tree, the bloodline is the direct order from person a to person b, with everyone in the middle. It doesn’t include everyone else that isn’t in that direct path.
Why is the term "bloodline" often used instead of "family tree"?
Submitted 1 month ago by Boomkop3@reddthat.com to [deleted]
Comments
brygphilomena@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Does the line go directly from mom or dad?
brygphilomena@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Whichever path it takes. It will only go in a single path unless you have some incestuous relationships. And if that happens and multiple routes work, it doesn’t matter which one you take.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
They’re different things.
A family tree is a representation of your ancestry by tracing backwards (usually, some people use the term for anything related to family ties). It’s backwards in time, almost always.
Your bloodline is forwards in time from ancestor. The idea is that there is a clear line of descent from one person, or a small group (depending on how it’s being applied in context).
Think of it in terms of race horses.
Secretariat had a family tree of horses before he came along. He had a dam and sire. They had dams and sires, and so forth. The tree, when laid out, may include siblings of secretariat, but wouldn’t include “nieces and nephews” under normal circumstances because that’s not really the point of the family tree as a term/idea. That steps into general genealogy.
However, from secretariat, you can trace records of horses descended from him, and that’s literally his bloodline. That’s his genetic line where his semen was used to make other horses.
Unlike horses, you couldn’t guarantee paternity for humans until genetic testing came along. At best, you could exclude someone via blood typing, or some inherited features (like a cleft chin).
The term bloodline itself started before knowledge of genetics was a thing to any serious degree. Mendel didn’t do his thing until the 1800s, and bloodline is a compound word that goes back 200 more years. But it is related as an idea. Related being the key word to that.
To reframe it, I have a family tree that includes a wide range of ancestors going back to Europe before we can’t find anything on either my matrilineal, or patrilineal side. Both my father’s surname and my mother’s maiden name have been traced back as far as the 1700s. However, my “bloodline” descends from the oldest known ancestor, a man that had a different name because it was in German instead of being anglicized. It also descends from multiple other people, but you could trace each of those and determine who else shares that bloodline.
Me and my sister are the only living people that have the exact same family tree, but we share any given bloodline with thousands (at least) of known individuals.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 month ago
That was a pleasure to read.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Thanks :)
futatorius@lemm.ee 1 month ago
And royals, like race horses, are not bred for intelligence.
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Blood line is a literal line of blood between the family. In-laws don’t count. It’s important when talking about royalty and you trace back whether someone has actual “royal blood” or is just an in law that married into the family.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 month ago
When your family tree looks like a christmas wreath you understand why some of the lights are flickering.
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Ahh, so it’s the side of a tree with some made up attribute?
Baaahb@feddit.nl 1 month ago
I mean, the people of a bloodline is a literal descendent of a specific person, while a family tree shows people who marry in as well.
The fact that you dont place value on knowing exactly how generically related you are to the person you wanna bang is fine, but to say its “made up” is stupid. Its made up in exactly the same way every part of human culture is made up.
futatorius@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Yeah, it only matters for old-school animal breeders and royal genealogists. It’s a pre-scientific notion.
andrewta@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Because trees are made of wood and without blood, your wood isn’t doing anything.
I should go.
BorisBoreUs@lemmy.world 1 month ago
We can start using BloodTree universally in place of either…
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
I like it
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
Who is actually using this term? I’ve only heard it in like medieval period fiction.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s like “female”. Nothing wrong with it per se, especially in a biological conversation, but it’s more used with animals.
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
I think it’s a bit different. Female at least refers to a real biological trait (or at least collection of traits). As a scientist I use the word female in my work all of the time, and frankly I’m not sure what alternatives to it even exist.
Bloodline is like… weird racist antiquated European ideas about ancestry that are more or less completely unscientific and wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever once heard it used in a scientific context.
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
I don’t like making presumptions but I’ve heard it from all sorts of people
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
Maybe a cultural or regional thing? Or is it related to a hobby or something? I can’t think of a single time I’ve heard this phrase in normal conversation.
MolochAlter@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s huge in wrestling at the moment because it’s been a faction for like 3-4 years involving the actual bloodline descendents of chief Peter Maivia, which includes The Rock, Roman Reigns, the Wild Samoans, and pretty much any samoan in wrestling excluding Samoa Joe.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 month ago
Imagine a line running only down the tree connecting two individuals - that’s a bloodline
If you can draw a bloodline from one person to the other, they are of the first’s bloodline. Your full blood siblings are not in your bloodline, though you share all of each other’s bloodlines
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Thank you!
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 month ago
Glad to help.
It’s a weird concept outside of inheritance - for example, a royal bloodline could end because the regent dies without children. Because the upstream follows the ruler, you might have to backtrack up the bloodline to find the next heritor, which you’d call a branch bloodline
But in modern life? It’s kinda pointless as a concept. We care about heredity and family, not bloodlines
burgersc12@mander.xyz 1 month ago
It sounds cooler. I don’t think it gets more complicated than that.
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
That it does!
curiousaur@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Because theirs isn’t actually a tree.
ABCDE@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Could be to heighten the importance, but they are not exactly the same thing, as one is directly genetic. You may see the term used when talking about kings and queens.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 1 month ago
stoly@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I sort of feel that this has to be a concept born from eugenics to talk about how some lines are superior to others.
Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 month ago
That would not surprise me
cobysev@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I personally see “bloodline” as a specific, direct line of descendants through a certain genetic-based family, title, position, etc. Whereas a family tree is literally everybody you’re related to, directly or not.