For Icelandic Lovers, An Incest Database

Newser.com:

An Icelander's pre-date checklist: Put on a nice shirt, buy some flowers ... run date's name through incest database?

It sounds crazy, but with Iceland's population at just 300,000, the risk of accidentally romancing a relative is high. Íslendingabók, or the Book of Icelanders, is a website that claims to have tracked 1,200 years of genealogical data on Icelanders -- a believable claim, since it was developed by a software entrepreneur and a genetics research company.

Concerned Icelanders enter their name and the name of their date, and as long as both are citizens or legal residents who have an Icelandic ID number, the database will report whether the two are too closely related to get cozy.

Read the whole story: Newser.com

Comments

[Blutodog]

07:22 PM on 02/13/2012

Iceland is the West Virginia of European culture.

[Tree S-B]

12:59 PM on 02/09/2012

The Amish and Mennonites have been doing this for a long time.

[Toni Goodman]

01:12 AM on 02/09/2012

This is slightly humorous, but also ingenious. I'm glad to see that someone is making a type of software that looks out for their fellows. The more I hear about Iceland, the more I want to move there.

[RCnDC]

11:16 PM on 02/08/2012

curious that for a law that applies to all couples, a picture of 2 men are put on the cover story....... i doubt they even recognize same sex couples in iceland... no wonder rick santorum includes the word incest in his rants and hate against gay people....

[ingash]

04:23 AM on 02/09/2012

Although I agree that the picture might be a peculiar choice, same sex marriage has been legal in Iceland for several years now.
The current prime minister being one example of a woman in a same sex marriage.

[bonelessfluff]

12:34 PM on 02/08/2012

They been fighting this type of technology in the south.