paulsamuel
race is defined multitudinously, which is a characteristic of social and cultural constructs, i.e., they mean different things to different people, depending upon how one defines the term. this is much rarer in science where communication is more important for the exchange of ideas and terms must have only a single meaning.
We are both aware of how the term is used and how it varies and how in science it does not . This however does not disprove the fact that there should be a scientifical term for the obvious characterstics .
to answer your question (i'm guessing that by 'racial characteristics, you mean things like skin color, epicanthic folds in eyelids, etc.), then, biologically, these traits fall within the whole suite of human genetic and morphological variation.
However they are a distinct group as they are showing and are passed genetically whereas over the years this has created similar physical groups . So there should be a more specific place for these characteristics rather than within the totality of human genetics .
genealogical data, (family tree examples) are biological data and can be treated as such.
But you are not willing to consider these specific biological data into a race , why ? Obviously because you dont feel they can be grouped based on the differences within race than between races . However you then judge this by genetic characteristics that have nothing to do with the physical presentation of man , why ? This reasoning is simply not logical , you can group them it shows Slavic peoples are different from Amharic peoples , if you deny race you deny that there are non-individual physical differences between these groups , and that simply is not reality .
So weither we call it race or not , these specific characteristics are biological and based on their physical commoneness they should be grouped
CS
Family members can be identified according to repeated patterns; so can race. These groupings aren't near of the same scale so comparing them is argumentative error.
Differning in quantity does not mean differing in quality . It is you without logical conjecture , a race is nothing but a huge family of peoples .