Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 May 28

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May 28

Two Heseltines

Is Michael Heseltine, the Conservative politician, any relation to Peter Warlock, the eccentric British composer whose real name was Philip Heseltine? --Viennese Waltz 08:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

In 1993 the Peter Warlock Society investigated the same thing and didn't find a link between the two.[1] Interestingly, Brian Sewell claimed that Warlock was his father. Nanonic (talk) 09:38, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I had already found that webpage myself via Google (I had done extensive online research prior to posting the question). It doesn't say there is no relation between the two, only that the Society was planning to investigate further. --Viennese Waltz 10:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

In these sorts of matters, if no link has been established despite numerous researches, it's safe to say there is no connection. (That is, no connection for all practical purposes. Ultimately, we are all related, but the precise nature of the relationship between Random Person A and Random Person B is almost always unknowable.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:58, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

(not an answer, sorry, but ...) Turi King's studies on the relationship between Y chromosome types and paternally inherited surnames are interesting. "Dr King’s research showed that between two men who share the same surname there is a 24% chance of sharing a common ancestor through that name but that this increases to nearly 50% if the surname they have is rare." [2]. Heseltine is "the 12,370th most common surname" in the UK according to britishsurnames.co.uk, so at least there's a chance they're related via a common ancestor named "Heseltine". ---Sluzzelin talk 00:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure having that surname in common is what prompted the search for the link in the first place. But the searches have turned up nothing. Sometimes people change their names, for a whole host of reasons. If I changed my name to Heseltine, that doesn't mean I'm related to any other Heseltines. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, obviously, that's why King doesn't say the chance of a common ancestor with the same name, no matter how rare, ever reaches 100%. She also looked at "40 surnames in depth by recruiting many different men all bearing the same surname, making sure that she excluded known relatives. Surnames such as Attenborough and Swindlehurst showed that over 70% of the men shared the same or near identical Y chromosome types". Britishsurnames unfortunately doesn't feature Swindlehurst, but Attenborough (ca. 252 people in the UK, ranked 13,766th) is similarly rare compared to Heseltine (ca. 341 people in the UK, ranked 12,370th). Of course people along the hereditary line could/would have changed their name to Heseltine, and some of the Heseltines might not actually be the biological sons of their 'fathers' named Heseltine, etc. One can say, however, ceteris paribus and without further information, that there is a significantly higher chance that Michael and Philip are related via a common ancestor named Heseltine than two randomly picked people. See also "Founders, Drift, and Infidelity: The Relationship between Y Chromosome Diversity and Patrilineal Surnames". ---Sluzzelin talk 10:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)