cultural norms

endogamy & pedigree collapse

Endogamy is the practice of only marrying within a specific group, whether it's based on religion, race, nationality, or some other factor.

what is endogamy?

pedigree collapse

Pedigree collapse is when the number of ancestors someone has is less than expected due to incest. In endogamous cultures like the Endogame Network models, collapse is very common.

While marrying cousins, aunts, uncles, and even siblings is egregious by today's standards, it used to be normal across many classes and cultures. The Endogame Network is just one endogamous cluster amongst many cultures; it's the concentration of power that makes it unique, not the incest.

contextualizing historical cultures

Trying to model endogamous families is a complicated task, especially in the Endogame Network where it's common for a few families to deeply intertwine branches together. It creates visual representations that can be quite difficult to process, but it's easier when you know to expect substantial pedigree collapse.

a chaotic mesh

naming norms

naming within pre-modern families introduces another source of errors

toponymic overlaps

When the modern surname format was adopted, many independent families adopted the name of their towns, creating an illusion of relation.

title -> surname overlaps

There are names such as Katz and HaKohen that are used as both titles and surnames, creating similar confusion as toponymic overlaps.

patronymic cycles

Outside of Sr., Jr., III, etc., there are also branches that may alternate between things like "Isaac ben Abraham" and "Abraham ben Isaac" for generations, creating several entries with the same name.

error handling

The Endogame Network relies on something called distributed parity to compensate for the difficulty of mapping genealogy within endogamous, name-repeating families.