Editing Paul Morphy (section)

===Early life===
Morphy was born in [[New Orleans]] to a prominent wealthy family. His father [[Alonzo Morphy]], of Spanish and Irish ancestry, was a lawyer. He later served as a Louisiana state legislator, [[List of Attorneys General of Louisiana|Attorney General]], and a [[List of justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court|Louisiana State Supreme Court Justice]]. Morphy's mother, Louise Thérèse Felicitie Thelcide Le Carpentier, was a musically talented woman from a prominent French [[Louisiana Creole people|Creole]] family. Paul grew up in an atmosphere of cultivated, genteel civility, where chess and music were the typical highlights of a Sunday home gathering.{{sfn|Lawson|2010|pp=10-11}}

Sources differ about when and how Morphy learned to play chess.{{sfn|Lawson|2010|p=11}} According to his uncle, Ernest Morphy, no one formally taught the young Morphy how to play chess; rather, he simply learned by watching others play. After observing Ernest and Alonzo abandon what had been a lengthy game, conceding that it was a draw—Paul spoke up, stating that Ernest should have won.{{sfn|Lawson|2010|pp=11-12}} This surprised the two men, who had not realized that Paul knew the rules of the game, let alone any [[chess strategy|notion of strategy]]. They were even more surprised when Paul proved his claim by resetting the pieces and demonstrating the win his uncle had missed.{{sfn|Lawson|2010|pp=11-12}} Biographer Frederick Milnes Edge dismisses this anecdote as apocryphal, however.{{sfn|Edge|1859|p=2|loc="I sorrowfully confess that my hero's unromantic regard for truth makes him characterize the above statement as a humbug and an impossibility"}} In 1845, Ernest acted as the second for [[Eugène Rousseau (chess player)|Eugène Rousseau]] in his match against [[Charles Henry Stanley|Charles H. Stanley]], and took the young Paul along with him.{{sfn|Lawson|2010|p=12}}