Scholars have long known that Darwin's family suffered significant fertility troubles from inbreeding--after all, he did marry his first cousin, Emma Wedgewood!

With more genealogical digging, scholar James Moore recenlty found (according to the times online):

- Darwin's maternal grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, had married his own third cousin, Sarah, and had eight children.

- The couple's eldest daughter, Susannah Wedgwood, married Robert Darwin, her cousin. Charles was their child.

- Meanwhile, Josiah and Sarah's second eldest son, also Josiah, had nine children, of whom four, including Emma, married first cousins.

Yikes! That's kinda gross. But, not unusual for Victorian times. Aristocratic families often intermarried for generations (a sort of--we're too good to marry other families, so we're gonna go breed genetic disease amongst ourselves--kind of game.)

I guess everyone is talking about this again because a new study has just surfaced in the journal Bioscience.

The study, which extended to 25 families including 176 children, found a statistical association between child mortality and the inbreeding coefficient of individuals in the Darwin/Wedgwood dynasty.

That means--CONFIRMED. Darwin was inbred. Wait, we already knew that.

And so did he, postulating its effects on his own family during his lifetime. Like the inbred plants he grew for genetic experiment, many of Darwin's 10 offspring died young, and one may have exhibited developmental abnormalities.

But, double confirmed. With computers. Just for the record.