A person who studies or specializes in the science of heredity and genetic inheritance.
From 'hereda' (heredity) plus '-ist' suffix denoting a specialist. Emerged alongside modern genetics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Early hereditarists studied families obsessively—like the 'Jukes' family study—trying to prove traits ran in families, though they often confused genetics with poverty and didn't understand genes at all.
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