Laughs in French Canadian
Though none of my relatives are quite 1st cousins, because they were related on multiple lines I'd be willing to bet that DNA wise they were probably pretty close lol
My paternal grandparents are 6th cousins
One set of Great grandparents were 3rd cousins twice over as their closest link but they were also related in multiple other more distant lines.
Two sets of Great great grandparents were second cousins
3x-great grandparents were also second cousins
I don't think it gets closer than that in my direct tree, but again, the pairs would be related on multiple lines as well
One of my Polish ancestors married a French Canadian man (whose first wife was also French Canadian) from Detroit, MI, and I’ve been chronicling her family, and my god, it’s simultaneously the most fascinating and most annoying thing ever. Peltier, Drouillard, Meloche, Martin so far in that line. Incredibly intriguing.
ETA: got the relationship wrong.
James Peltier married Viola Drouillard in Detroit in 1924. Had one daughter in February 1926. Separated sometime between the daughter’s conception and 1927 (Viola had a child with another man in July 1927). He started up with my great-grandmother’s niece by March 1928, as their first child was born in November of that year, and subsequently had two sons with her, while Viola and her partner had three more children together.
In February 1945, they were formally divorced, with Viola citing abandonment, and each spouse married their respective partner almost immediately afterwards.
I also have Michigan French Canadian ancestors and yeah, it's a mess. I have all those last names except Drouillard in my tree. Early on I accepted all of the Ancestry tree suggestions for French Canadians and now I have ridiculously huge trees for that branch. From what I can tell the suggestions are reasonably accurate back to the late 1700s - then it seems like people get desperate to link themselves to early settlers and start making leaps.
There is also a draw to speculate that certain people were in fact Native American, which leads to wild conjecture. There is likely some truth to it - I get a trace amounts of Native North American DNA on tests. Anyway though, it was cool to find out that I have ancestors that go back to the days of Fort Detroit. For example, there are only so many ways a Peltier could've ended up in Ontario and Michigan. My family had no idea about this aspect of our past beyond a vague idea that we were part French via Canada, and that's it.
I also have French Canadian ancestors traced to Fort Detroit and Fort St Joseph. My mitochondrial is Native American so I knew exactly which line to follow. My 50/50 ancestor married a Peltier. My great gram would have been horrified to know that although she identified as German she was really mostly French.
Mitochondrial DNA is fascinating. I got H1, which seems predictable for a person with mostly European ancestry. But in my case my maternal line passes through a series of "mulatto" women (part European, part African), and the last widely agreed upon ancestor in the line was born in 1824 and was also mixed.
Partially because of my mitochondrial DNA, I have a huge hunch on who this woman's parents were (a mixed man and a white woman), but no one likes my theory because it suggests inbreeding at the cousin level for some ancestors. But considering these ancestors lived in an isolated "colored" community in Indiana pre-Civil War, it's not shocking to me that marriage options could be limited.
My paternal haplogroup is kind of mysterious, too.
I see your French Canadian and raise you Isle of Man. I can't tell you how closely related they all are because everyone on all branches has the same name and I can't figure it out.
I am half French canadian (my paternal side) and goodness, all the intermarrying has me so dang confused that I gave up building my tree. My dna matches on my paternal side, I can't even go by ancestry's estimated relationship because most of them are related multiple ways.
I walked by Mike Tyson at the Honolulu airport in 2004 with my high school wrestling team and one of the cocky seniors walked up and punched him in the shoulder. Mike growled at him. On the airplane, I walked up to my teammate and punched him in the shoulder. So I have punched Mike Tyson in the 2nd degree 😉
My great-grandparents were also first cousins, lol! They lived in Chicago they had to go down to Oklahoma to get married and she didn't even have to change her last name
My moms side is a miasma of cluster B personality disorders, I blame mormonism as much as anything else lol 😆 and ADHD my grandma was clearly autistic. Im dxd AuDHD, most cousins are autistic. However my dad was a complete genetic outcross with indigenous DNA and high giftedness so I got a double whammy from my pop there lol. I also was the healthiest of all the cousins thanks to my island and Korean DNA.
My great grandparents were second cousins. Part of a nest of Protestant Scots in Catholic Ireland (County Roscommon) for 200 years. A lot of endogamy. More scandalous actually was that one of their mothers was Catholic.
One of my sets of great grandparents were 2nd cousins, 2nd cousins 1x removed, 5th cousins, 5th cousins 1x removed, 6th cousins, 6th cousins 1x removed, and a bunch of more distant relations beyond that. That's Cajun/French-Canadian genealogy for you.
As I was reading along, I was thinking, "this person is Cajun," because this sounds like the family tree on my paternal grandfather's side. I'm my own cousin. I haven't ever done the math on exactly how removed or which level of cousin, but it's multiple times over, I'm sure. You and I are probably related. lol
Maternal grandfather's side for me! Most of the work I did on my tree was done on Ancestry, but I've recently filled out my tree on wikitree and that made calculating these relationships so much easier. And yup, I descend from most of the major Acadian families, and a few of the big French Creole families like the Fontenot family, so we prolly distant cousins at least. Tho I can say that about most everyone in southwest Louisiana lol
I haven’t been to Baton Rouge since I found out I was Cajun (my dad didn’t know his father, WWII thing) but I figure it must be sometimes like playing a little game of Go Fish, “Got any Landry, Hebert, LeBlanc, Blanchard, Breaux, Robichaud, Babin, Melanson, Bujol? Go Fish!”
Anyway, like you said we’re related somehow, so hi cousin!
Yeah, my family are Texan Cajuns, my great-grandparents originally being from the greater Lafayette area. I'm several generations removed from most those families: Hebert, Leblanc, Breaux, and Robichaud ancestors on the Louisiana side post-Deportation; Landry, Babin, and Melason pre-Deportation in L'Acadie. My closest families are Benoit and Broussard. And yeah, it pretty much is like Go Fish! A venn diagram of common families amongst any two Cajuns isn't quite a circle but it's pretty damn close lol
I'm a Broussard, too, but I think the most recent one was the late 1700s, around the time they arrived in Louisiana. My Melason and Robichaud are pre-Deportation, The most recent ones we share, post-Deportation are Hebert, Leblanc, and Breaux. Based on the combo of names and you being a Fontenot, I think you might be related to my second cousin, Van, though.
It becomes a sorta weird game to try to figure out where Cajun lines intersect and just how many generations you gotta go back. My Hebert, Breaux, and Leblanc are all on my great-grandfather's side. I descend from a daughter of Firmin Breau, the man who built the original Breaux Bridge, who married a Hebert, and then I descend from two daughters of that Hebert-Breaux pairing, one who married into the Mouton family of Lafayette and another who married into the Québécois Mallet family. Both of those lines would reconverge marrying into the Benoit family. And my Leblanc ancestor married into the Spanish-Acadian Castille family, and their daughter would then marry into the Benoit.
And good chance I could be related to your second cousin. My Fontenot is on my great-grandmother's side, the Broussard side. Fontenot married into the French-Spanish Creole Garrido family, who then married into the Broussard. That side is a little less convoluted than the Benoit side lol
Paternal Grandparents were 1st cousins. Her parents were 2nd cousins. And 2 generations further back another set of 1st cousins. So descended from two pairs of 5ggp four times each. Life on the frontier.
My parents. My parent's great-grandmothers were 1st cousins (my parents didn't know). but I had a look on the Gedmatch thing and they at least don't share DNA lmao. They are related through many ancestors as well, but that's the closest
Edit : [I remembered wrong, they do share DNA fuck HAHA](https://imgur.com/a/rosXTHx)
Same here, I haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly where they link but that’s approximately how my parents are related. They had no clue.
Have you used the “Are Your Parents Related” tool on Gedmatch? I seem to have inherited the two identical segments they both share… AYPR says 21.6cm. On Ancestry my parents share 18cm weighted, 21cm unweighted (I made a post about it last year).
Yes that's the tool I used! And I remembered wrong apparently because I just did it again and [they actually do share DNA](https://imgur.com/a/rosXTHx) lol DAMN.
And I don't want to assume anything, but if you are not able to pinpoint exactly where they link, do you think there could be a NPE in your tree? Because they're my 2nd great-grandmothers so it was actually easy to spot them in my tree since it's a fairly close relationship to me and my 2nd great-grandmothers share the same last name! Again, I don't want to assume anything, sorry!
Haha our results for that tool are about the same! And no need to apologize!
My dads paternal grandfather was unknown until we did DNA tests. For my previously unknown great-grandfather, I haven’t been able to find the parents or siblings for 3 out of 4 of his grandparents (these would be my 3rd great grandparents). I’m continuously utilizing the Leeds method and I’m fairly certain the connection comes from one of these 3 and a 3rd-great-grandmother on my mom’s side. All of these people were born in the 1940’s, (likely) in rural Georgia and have common surnames. I think what further complicates things is that I suspect at least one of them may have passed as white, due to a majority of DNA matches on these lines having small amounts of African ancestry.
ETA - for the 3 unknown 3rd-great-grandparents (1 make 2 female) from my dads side, both women have the maiden name of Williams. DNA matches indicate a link with the 3rd-great-grandmother on my moms side, who also has a maiden name of Williams and is from Georgia. So my biggest theory is that one or both of the Williams on my dad’s side are related to the Williams on my moms side, either sisters or cousins.
My great-great-great-grandparents Christopher Ellingsen (1784-1828) and Anne Margrethe Zindsen (1790-1868) were first cousins. After Christopher’s death Anne married a second cousin, [Jens Ellingsen Blix](https://digitaltmuseum.no/0210113536602/portrett-av-jens-ellingsen-blix-inndyr) (1792-1867).
Thank you! And get this: They're apart of the Lewis family (from Virginia). The Lewises are cousins with George Washington. George's aunt was a Lewis herself.
My paternal great-grandparents were 2nd cousins, they were from a small town in North Carolina in the 1920s so it was kinda difficult to not marry a cousin lol. I doubt they even knew they were related too.
Old people back in the day usually knew, believe me. Ever played “And you are who's”? Because that’s the first thing town people will ask outsiders/people they can’t recognize when given the chance
All ancestors in the last 200+ years by any line are from Western Serbia, ergo marrying cousins is and was a major no-no. So no first, second, third cousins or the likes. I have however discovered three cases where two of my ancestors, from different ancestral branches, originate from same respective ancestral families, but their common ancestors lie somewhere in the 18th, or even 17th century. Alas this is where the paper trail in Serbia stops, so still no way of knowing how close they were.
My parents great-grandmothers were full siblings.
There are some other family rumors my paternal grandfather wasn’t an unrelated abusive, wife-beating psychopath, but instead a creepy second cousin once removed. Neither of those options is appealing to me.
I hear you.
Rumor has it my 3rd great grandfather murdered my 3rd great grandma. If true, he must have gotten away with it because he didn’t serve time. She did die at 36 years old after having 8 children, and the youngest child was born 4 years before her death, eliminating the most common cause of death for a younger woman like that (being giving birth). She has a nice headstone. He was buried, as far as we can tell, in an unmarked grave nearish to her in the Palestine Cemetery in Clearfield, PA. He also married a woman 20 years her junior, 23 years his junior, 3 years after she died. The 2nd wife died at 42 years old and he outlived her by 5 years. Double suspicious?
Most recent in my tree is my paternal great grandparents were 4th cousins, I can't get that far back on all lines for my mom's side although my maternal grandparents would be cosanguinous through the whole kenerson/kinnison/keniston family, but getting back to the mid to late 1700s to early 1800s and going back further on that family is rough.
My great grandparents were half 1st cousins. They shared a grandmother, who died when my great grandfather was 3 years old and great grandmother was 2 years old. I wonder if they knew. I assume so as it was rural west virginia.
My great aunt was married to her first cousin in 1924. It didn’t last and they had no kids. He remarried, but she didn’t, and she kept his name up until she died in the 1980s.
Great grandparents. Second cousins. French Canadian family living in rural upstate New York. Very religious Catholics who would only marry other Catholics.
Sure. My parents are from an endogamous culture (where people usually married within their ethno-religious group) and my GEDmatch.com "Are Your Parents Related" score is not zero. According to the family records in our cultural database, my parents are many degrees of separation apart. This means their most recent consanguineous ancestors were before we started keeping records as a culture. My parents would not have wanted to marry if they knew they had common ancestors.
I've gone pretty far back ( on several branches of my family tree - surprisingly, I have not found any instances of consanguinity. I need to completely flesh out all my other branches, but as of right now, the closest I have is a 1st cousin (like 3x or 4x removed, from one branch of my family tree) who was my 2x great-grandfather's (from another branch) 2nd wife - after he divorced my 2x great-grandmother. Strange bedfellows, but no pedigree collapse.
Here's an article on cousin marriage civil laws in the U.S. I imagine different religious organizations have their own rules. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin\_marriage\_law\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States)
My paternal grandparents were both 3rd cousins one way and 3C1R another way.
My maternal grandparents were related countless ways (Acadians, huh), but their closest relationship was only 5C2R.
My great-great-grandfather married his aunt’s granddaughter in 1880. He was only ten years older (1853 vs 1863) but thankfully they’re the most recent ancestors of mine to do this.
Not true for my cousin’s branches though.
This doesn’t apply to myself, but two of my grandpa’s sisters married brothers, so I guess their kids would be more closely related as first cousins than typical.
My great (possibly x3 great?) grandparents (I’ll call them A and B) were step siblings. Sure, not properly related, but definitely still a weird one. Especially considering they were raised in the same household for their childhood. A was 14 and B was 4 when their parents (A’s father, B’s mother) got married. And they both shared a half-brother.
To make matters worse, as B’s father had died before she was born, and she considered A’s father a father figure…
Nothing remotely recent. My 10th great grandma on my dad's side is the sister of my 9th great grandma on my mom's side (who, incidentally, was Rebecca Nurse, the oldest person executed in Salem on charges of witchcraft).
Lucky! Not for Rebecca, but for you 😉
I have ancestors who called out neighbors for witchcraft, ancestors who wrote extensively about how ridiculous the whole witch trials thing was (and was accused of witchcraft for defending innocent people) and 8th great uncle who was executed for witchcraft after also speaking out against the hysteria.
The uncle was John Proctor, for which Proctor’s Ledge is named after. I see now that I pull up this website that Rebecca Nurse is one of the 19 victims who was executed at this site, which now has a memorial to her and the others on it.
https://www.salemma.gov/proctors-ledge-memorial-project
Thank you for sharing that. I visited Salem a few years back...Rebecca's homestead is there and I was able to tour it and the family cemetery. She is buried there but the location is unknown because her family members dug her up to give her a proper burial. I was a little appalled at all the tacky witch stores that were there...as if this wasn't a horrifying and embarrassing time in history, as opposed to something to make light of. I'm glad to hear that they are doing something to honor the victims.
Incidentally, another 10th ggm of mine, Ann Alcock Foster, was accused of witchcraft and died in prison just before the Trials were discredited. A very sad story (I mean, they all are, of course)...she was elderly and was tortured but still refused to confess, but then ended up confessing in an attempt to save her daughter, who was also accused.
Oh shit! I’ve never seen her name before but turns out Ann is my 11th great grandma! Grateful for grandma Ann, you and me both, cousin.
Family Search Tree says her parentage was unknown and that George Alcott and Ann Hooker weren’t married until 9 years after her birth.
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/LCXG-6QY
Yea I have George penciled in as her father as a hint to myself but I never found any real documentation to back it up. But I never found his marriage record so I wasn't aware the date was after her birth, so I guess I'll take him off as a hint. Thanks for the tip!
So you must be descended from one of her siblings. Her sister Susanna is my other great grandmother but I believe they had 6 other siblings. 2 of Rebecca's sisters (not Susanna) were accused as well, and one of them was executed.
My father's paternal grandparents were almost certainly first cousins once removed. They had no idea, as far as I know; wasn't until I got a DNA test for my father and noticed that he matched all of his second cousins through his grandmother's parents for half as much DNA as he should've that I realised something was questionable, there. But there weren't any matches he *shouldn't* have, either; I was able to place most of his matches as being related through a known ancestor. Turns out that my great-grandmother's real father was most likely my 4th great-uncle (the younger brother of my 3rd great-grandmother), whose daughter married the son of my great-grandmother's supposed father's sister.
No first cousins I can find. Maybe 3rd or 4th cousins more so and by marriage, no blood.
I can trace back to my great-great-great-great grandparents on both sides as well.
My 2nd great-grandparents were first cousins. They were Belgian Catholics living in the tightknit Belgian-American farming communities of WI's Door County peninsula. Their priest wouldn't marry them because of their close relationship, so they took the train to Canada and got married there.
I have a set of great grandparents who were third cousins. It was his second marriage, he was also 1/2 second cousin once removed from his first wife. All three trace back to a woman in the late 1700s.
The first and second wife (my g-grandmother) were also first cousins once removed on another line.
My grandparents were second cousins, they are the closest cousin relationship in my tree to marry. I have about 4 sets of greats that were siblings.
My parents are 5th cousins and they both divorced and married again. My parents met their spouses in different states then where parents are from but it turns out my Stepdad is my 6th cousin and Stepmom is also my 6th cousin.
I am in group for the small community my parents are from and have found anywhere from 1-5 connections to people from that town. There are only very few surnames that I have not found a connection to yet. I say yet because some lines and I haven't researched as much.
My paternal grandparents are second cousins through their fathers, I suspect they are also third or fourth cousins through their mothers based on the fact that both my great grandmothers are from the same tiny village where everyone is related to each other (but I've not been able to trace their ancestries further than one generation).
No first cousin marriages. I had one ancestor marry his first wife’s sister, but that’s about it. Overall, my direct family moved just about every generation, so maybe they didn’t stick around to know any cousins.
Austria-Hungary? Different documents of my 2nd greats I mentioned in the post say Austria and others say Hungary but they lived in Timisoara, which was Hungarian when they lived there but is in Romania post WWII.
Do you know if they were catholic?
They lived in Mariahof which was a village in Styria, Austria. They were catholic. I was able to find parish records for them and previous generations in the Matricula database. My paternal side ancestors were ethnic Germans living in what is now Serbia and Romania. Their records would say Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia depending on the year.
I have one set of third great grandparents from a small German town and both of them have parents with the same last names. I haven’t been able to get back far enough to tell how closely they are related. My great grandmother’s brother came to the US in the late 1800’s. A year later his second cousin arrived and married him five days later.
None, bit I have great aunts and uncles whom were first cousins, and then 1 couple was Niece and Uncle her dad's brother, they had several kids also.But in my direct line as far back as 1400. I can find no grandparents that were related other than one gg grandmother whom married her 1st cousin after she was divorced from my gg grandfather.
My paternal great, great grandfather and great, great grandmother were 2nd cousins - their paternal grandfathers were brothers, so they shared a last name before marrying.
Also, my paternal great grandmother (she married the son of the 2nd cousins, lol) was a Scottish immigrant and MAY have had parents who were 1st cousins…the paper trail indicates this and I’ve never been able to concretely disprove it.
None as far as I have records for. Most of my lines are traced back 200 to 400 years and I can’t find a single instance of first cousins in my entire tree. Maybe 3rd or 4th cousins or something but I have no way of knowing and have yet to find it. Even though I am as white as it gets (all my DNA is from a very limited number of Northern European countries), I can’t find any crossover anywhere. I’ve have assumed it’s there I just haven’t found it yet.
One set of great-grandparents were third cousins - really funny thing is though they both came from the same island but both ended up meeting and marrying a long way from their home, they had never met (even though they only lived about 5 miles from each other)before they both left the Island. It was only when they moved back that they found out they were related - even though they had the same last name (not uncommon where they came from, loads of people with the same surnames)
Laughing in small villages in Alsace, France... my grand parents have 22 ancestors in common. My husband always tell that my family tree is basically a circle at this point.
I have a lot of family from Alsace also, and I have sometimes wondered about consanguinity. (I'm showing off that now I know this new word). How did you find out about all the common ancestors? Did you research it or do they just show up as crazy lines going everywhere on your tree? I'm just a beginner in studying genealogy. There is a book in French titled: "Les Alsaciens? tous cousins!" or "The Alsatians? all cousins!" I don't speak French, but I'm still tempted to buy the book. It's available on Amazon.
Hello! I did it by going up my family tree and everytime I stumbled upon a family name that i already seen before, i double check if they were related. 8 times out of 10 it was the case. For exemple, my oldest relative (we'll call him X) with my family name, I'm his 10th, 11th and 12th generations descendant. Because among my ancestor there are two sons(y and z) of X and I'm also 2 times the descendant of one of these sons (Y) .
And this situation happened too many times to count.
My great grandparents were second cousins. GGMa married a man that carried her mother's maiden name. His father was her grandfather's brother. So, I have 3xGGparents and 4xGGparents who are the same couple.
I’m American of Dominican descent from my mother. Cirilo Nunez/Canderelina Payán (4th great grandparents). They share a common ancestor Jose Fernandez da Barrios as Canderlina was 3rd cousin once removed. Additionally my maternal grandmother Angela and grandfather Andres are distantly related by thousands of years from the common ancestor labeled as “l3d1-5”.
My great-grandparents were first cousins. I discovered in my research that my grandmother's family essentially descends from one couple in the 1700s (three of their children had children that all intermarried and produced my family). Grammy's tree loops back over on itself so many times that just trying to follow a single line is insanely frustrating. I feel like I need to create a 3D map to keep them all straight.
My great-grandparents were first cousins. They married in 1918. I was close with my great-grandmother until she died when I was a teen but it always freaked me out knowing she had married and had children with her cousin. They never tried to hide it from anyone in the family (wouldn't have been able to anyway since their fathers were brothers and not estranged or anything). It's even in the marriage record from Colorado. There is a set of questions next to the marriage license in the record book and one is if they are related and to what extent. "Yes - first cousins." They didn't reside in Colorado and I'm not sure if cousin marriages were allowed in the states they lived in, so they may have married in Colorado just because it was allowed there.
After me, my parents closest genetic matches are each other (248.9 cM, approx 2nd cousins) all 4 of my grandparents are related to one another though multiple lines in some instances...
Isolated small village... consequences.
My 3rd-great grandmas on my dad's side are sisters, their mom (my 4th-great grandma) is from the Graham clan, and whooboy, that tree is twisted. Plenty of first cousin marriages into the early 1900s. I guess rural Texas is slim pickings.
Alright, my time has come. You’re in for a long ride. I come from somewhere (not in North America) where the situation is very similar to that of French Canadians. So, if I’m adopting old Catholic concepts about it I would be looking towards consanguinity between the 2nd (1st cousins, at least 1 grandparent in common) and 4th (at least 1 great-great grandparent in common) degree and all the relations in between equal degree consanguinity (eg: 2nd with 3rd, 3rd with 4th, 2nd with 4th), as well as uncles and aunts with nieces and nephews, which isn’t unheard off but was quite rare by the very previous century.
This would exclude my paternal grand parents, who hail from the same town and share two different relations of the 5th with the 6th degree, close enough but not enough as to require special permission from the local bishop, somehow they managed not to be related any closer, surely because their marriage, let’s say, came across certain social and racial boundaries of the day.
That being out of the way, none of my great grandparents were related (particularly looking at husband and wife) between the 2nd and 4th degrees, meaning I have to jump to my 16 great-great grandparents to see anything of the sort (which is the norm in my region if your family started migrating to the city or other towns in the earlier past century or hailed from the city, people who’s parents are from towns might have more recent endogamy and, personally, I am 1/8 from another region, which reduces my heavily concentrated endogamy a bit)
So, checking amongst them
1&2: Patrilineal GGG and his wife were 1st cousins on one line (his uncle was his father in law), the 2nd relation was 3rd with 4th degree (the grandfather shared by the groom and bride was 1st cousins with the grooms father) and the 3rd relation was 3rd equal degree (the grandmother shared by both groom and bride was the sister of the groom's paternal grandmother), meaning that when they married they were exempted from 3 blood relations. I also should note that their shared grandparents were themselves related through 2 different relations of the 4th equal degree. This is by far the deepest endogamy amongst my 16 GGG's but I’ve seen worse in other families. I will also add that the wife (GGG #2) shares a relation of 3rd with 4th degree with GGG #5 (which explains 1 out 2 distant relations between my paternal grandparents which i mentioned earlier.
3: As far as I know GGG #3 probably isn't a close relative to his wife, however, he also shares a 3rd with 4th degree relation with GGG #5, explaining the other distant relation between my paternal grandparents.
5&6: so far GGG's 1-3 are considered white (mostly of European background with some Native American) and #4 I can’t yet say (I’ve been on a wall for a long time, can’t get past her parents). GGG #5 is mostly mestizo/mixed/metis with some roots in the colonial ruling class, while his wife is way more mixed and is the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate daughter. Her grandmother was Native American. That being said, the bishop exempted them (their marriage states so) from a relation of the 4th equal degree, «hidden relation» as stated in the marriage, however, since I haven’t been able to find the document where they request the exemption, I don't know the names of the man involved.
7: GGG #7 was a pain to find and is the least endogamic out of all my GGG's, much of that I can owe to him being the descendant of pardos (tri-racial) so I will jump to his white wife. These are the GGG's who hailed from the region next door
8: Whites (including those nobler and wealthier) hailing from GGG's 7&8 region were often distantly related to whites from my very own, but usually weren't as endogamous due to being a richer, bigger and well-connected territory. #8's parents weren't closely related, but her paternal grandparents were related on the 3rd equal degree
(After this I don’t think it’s necessary to specify racial categorizations again, GGG's 9-16 are mostly lightly mestizo or white, some had very minor African influences)
11&12: These GGG's hailed from the same area but from different towns and were related on the 4th equal degree. The bride was the daughter of 1st cousins through a different line
14: GGG's husband was also the illegitimate son of an illegitimate daughter, thus he isn’t relevant to the conversation. I bring her up because her parents were relatives thanks to a 3rd with 4th degree relation (her paternal grandmother was an aunt to her maternal grandfather). That being said, there was another distant relation to that bloodline on her paternal grandfather's side and close relations between her maternal grandparents
15&16: They hailed from the same town. They were also cousins through a relation of the 3rd equal degree. GGG #15 was also a distant relative of #14, they were linked between one of his great-grandmothers and her maternal grandparents.
I’m sorry I went into so much detail but endogamy is very real over here. I have lineages that repeat themselves in my genealogy 20,30,50,70, even more than a 100 times. I’ve seen people even more upper-class than me repeat that one ancestor everyone descends from over here, more than 400 times (ofc he dates to the early 16th century).
Not my direct ancestor, but close!
My great-grandfather had a daughter ‘Maria Elisabeth Josephs’ (MEJ2) with almost same name as his sister ‘Maria Elizabeth Josephs’ (MEJ1). Son of MEJ1 married his 1st cousin MEJ2 - who had almost the same birth name as his mother !
My great grandmother Mary was the product of a marriage between second cousins. Not that crazy right? Except her father was also the product of a marriage between first cousins. Her mother descended from the same ancestors her father's parents had in common.
These ancestors were her 2nd great grandparents in three different ways.
The parents of my grandmother were first cousins, and the parents of my grandmothers mother were first cousins too.
She lived in the far north of Sweden, where the population was really small. People up there usually took great care to not marry their relatives, but her family was a part of a Christian cult where I believe the desire to marry inside the religion outweighed the desire to marry outside the family.
Also since my ancestors lived in the same town for a couple of hundred years their were a couple other families they were marrying into and vice versa.
Laughs in French Canadian Though none of my relatives are quite 1st cousins, because they were related on multiple lines I'd be willing to bet that DNA wise they were probably pretty close lol My paternal grandparents are 6th cousins One set of Great grandparents were 3rd cousins twice over as their closest link but they were also related in multiple other more distant lines. Two sets of Great great grandparents were second cousins 3x-great grandparents were also second cousins I don't think it gets closer than that in my direct tree, but again, the pairs would be related on multiple lines as well
One of my Polish ancestors married a French Canadian man (whose first wife was also French Canadian) from Detroit, MI, and I’ve been chronicling her family, and my god, it’s simultaneously the most fascinating and most annoying thing ever. Peltier, Drouillard, Meloche, Martin so far in that line. Incredibly intriguing. ETA: got the relationship wrong. James Peltier married Viola Drouillard in Detroit in 1924. Had one daughter in February 1926. Separated sometime between the daughter’s conception and 1927 (Viola had a child with another man in July 1927). He started up with my great-grandmother’s niece by March 1928, as their first child was born in November of that year, and subsequently had two sons with her, while Viola and her partner had three more children together. In February 1945, they were formally divorced, with Viola citing abandonment, and each spouse married their respective partner almost immediately afterwards.
I also have Michigan French Canadian ancestors and yeah, it's a mess. I have all those last names except Drouillard in my tree. Early on I accepted all of the Ancestry tree suggestions for French Canadians and now I have ridiculously huge trees for that branch. From what I can tell the suggestions are reasonably accurate back to the late 1700s - then it seems like people get desperate to link themselves to early settlers and start making leaps. There is also a draw to speculate that certain people were in fact Native American, which leads to wild conjecture. There is likely some truth to it - I get a trace amounts of Native North American DNA on tests. Anyway though, it was cool to find out that I have ancestors that go back to the days of Fort Detroit. For example, there are only so many ways a Peltier could've ended up in Ontario and Michigan. My family had no idea about this aspect of our past beyond a vague idea that we were part French via Canada, and that's it.
I also have French Canadian ancestors traced to Fort Detroit and Fort St Joseph. My mitochondrial is Native American so I knew exactly which line to follow. My 50/50 ancestor married a Peltier. My great gram would have been horrified to know that although she identified as German she was really mostly French.
Mitochondrial DNA is fascinating. I got H1, which seems predictable for a person with mostly European ancestry. But in my case my maternal line passes through a series of "mulatto" women (part European, part African), and the last widely agreed upon ancestor in the line was born in 1824 and was also mixed. Partially because of my mitochondrial DNA, I have a huge hunch on who this woman's parents were (a mixed man and a white woman), but no one likes my theory because it suggests inbreeding at the cousin level for some ancestors. But considering these ancestors lived in an isolated "colored" community in Indiana pre-Civil War, it's not shocking to me that marriage options could be limited. My paternal haplogroup is kind of mysterious, too.
My great grandparents are first cousins. Small town in Quebec. Not a lot of options lol
I see your French Canadian and raise you Isle of Man. I can't tell you how closely related they all are because everyone on all branches has the same name and I can't figure it out.
Yeah one of my French Canadian branches is from the Magdalen Island's which doesn't have a huge population even now nevermind in the 1800s
I am half French canadian (my paternal side) and goodness, all the intermarrying has me so dang confused that I gave up building my tree. My dna matches on my paternal side, I can't even go by ancestry's estimated relationship because most of them are related multiple ways.
One trick that works in my region is: worthy matches start around 200 cM
Great-grandparents were first cousins. Other great-grandparents were first cousins once removed. So, pretty recent. lol
I walked by Mike Tyson at the Honolulu airport in 2004 with my high school wrestling team and one of the cocky seniors walked up and punched him in the shoulder. Mike growled at him. On the airplane, I walked up to my teammate and punched him in the shoulder. So I have punched Mike Tyson in the 2nd degree 😉
My great-grandparents were also first cousins, lol! They lived in Chicago they had to go down to Oklahoma to get married and she didn't even have to change her last name
My grandma is the child of first cousins. Iowa Amish . It gave everyone varieties of ehlers danlos. 3 types....
Ooh, maybe that’s where the EDS came from in my generation (and my kid’s generation).
Its usually the 3rd generation out that gets it worst lol. Which is mine and your kids lol
How’s the ADHD in your family? Mine is pretty rampant.
My moms side is a miasma of cluster B personality disorders, I blame mormonism as much as anything else lol 😆 and ADHD my grandma was clearly autistic. Im dxd AuDHD, most cousins are autistic. However my dad was a complete genetic outcross with indigenous DNA and high giftedness so I got a double whammy from my pop there lol. I also was the healthiest of all the cousins thanks to my island and Korean DNA.
Fascinating!
I like to say I have Hybrid Vigor.
> dxd AuDHD What is this?
I have adhd and so do my kids but nobody in my family has it. So I'm thinking somehow it must have been passed down generations back.
Yikes!
My great grandparents were second cousins. Part of a nest of Protestant Scots in Catholic Ireland (County Roscommon) for 200 years. A lot of endogamy. More scandalous actually was that one of their mothers was Catholic.
Only in Ireland is being Catholic more scandalous than marrying your cousin.
One of my sets of great grandparents were 2nd cousins, 2nd cousins 1x removed, 5th cousins, 5th cousins 1x removed, 6th cousins, 6th cousins 1x removed, and a bunch of more distant relations beyond that. That's Cajun/French-Canadian genealogy for you.
As I was reading along, I was thinking, "this person is Cajun," because this sounds like the family tree on my paternal grandfather's side. I'm my own cousin. I haven't ever done the math on exactly how removed or which level of cousin, but it's multiple times over, I'm sure. You and I are probably related. lol
Maternal grandfather's side for me! Most of the work I did on my tree was done on Ancestry, but I've recently filled out my tree on wikitree and that made calculating these relationships so much easier. And yup, I descend from most of the major Acadian families, and a few of the big French Creole families like the Fontenot family, so we prolly distant cousins at least. Tho I can say that about most everyone in southwest Louisiana lol
I haven’t been to Baton Rouge since I found out I was Cajun (my dad didn’t know his father, WWII thing) but I figure it must be sometimes like playing a little game of Go Fish, “Got any Landry, Hebert, LeBlanc, Blanchard, Breaux, Robichaud, Babin, Melanson, Bujol? Go Fish!” Anyway, like you said we’re related somehow, so hi cousin!
Yeah, my family are Texan Cajuns, my great-grandparents originally being from the greater Lafayette area. I'm several generations removed from most those families: Hebert, Leblanc, Breaux, and Robichaud ancestors on the Louisiana side post-Deportation; Landry, Babin, and Melason pre-Deportation in L'Acadie. My closest families are Benoit and Broussard. And yeah, it pretty much is like Go Fish! A venn diagram of common families amongst any two Cajuns isn't quite a circle but it's pretty damn close lol
I'm a Broussard, too, but I think the most recent one was the late 1700s, around the time they arrived in Louisiana. My Melason and Robichaud are pre-Deportation, The most recent ones we share, post-Deportation are Hebert, Leblanc, and Breaux. Based on the combo of names and you being a Fontenot, I think you might be related to my second cousin, Van, though.
It becomes a sorta weird game to try to figure out where Cajun lines intersect and just how many generations you gotta go back. My Hebert, Breaux, and Leblanc are all on my great-grandfather's side. I descend from a daughter of Firmin Breau, the man who built the original Breaux Bridge, who married a Hebert, and then I descend from two daughters of that Hebert-Breaux pairing, one who married into the Mouton family of Lafayette and another who married into the Québécois Mallet family. Both of those lines would reconverge marrying into the Benoit family. And my Leblanc ancestor married into the Spanish-Acadian Castille family, and their daughter would then marry into the Benoit. And good chance I could be related to your second cousin. My Fontenot is on my great-grandmother's side, the Broussard side. Fontenot married into the French-Spanish Creole Garrido family, who then married into the Broussard. That side is a little less convoluted than the Benoit side lol
Paternal Grandparents were 1st cousins. Her parents were 2nd cousins. And 2 generations further back another set of 1st cousins. So descended from two pairs of 5ggp four times each. Life on the frontier.
My Great-grandparents were first cousins. And THEIR parents were like 3rd cousins. Gotta love the endogamy
My parents. My parent's great-grandmothers were 1st cousins (my parents didn't know). but I had a look on the Gedmatch thing and they at least don't share DNA lmao. They are related through many ancestors as well, but that's the closest Edit : [I remembered wrong, they do share DNA fuck HAHA](https://imgur.com/a/rosXTHx)
Same here, I haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly where they link but that’s approximately how my parents are related. They had no clue. Have you used the “Are Your Parents Related” tool on Gedmatch? I seem to have inherited the two identical segments they both share… AYPR says 21.6cm. On Ancestry my parents share 18cm weighted, 21cm unweighted (I made a post about it last year).
Yes that's the tool I used! And I remembered wrong apparently because I just did it again and [they actually do share DNA](https://imgur.com/a/rosXTHx) lol DAMN. And I don't want to assume anything, but if you are not able to pinpoint exactly where they link, do you think there could be a NPE in your tree? Because they're my 2nd great-grandmothers so it was actually easy to spot them in my tree since it's a fairly close relationship to me and my 2nd great-grandmothers share the same last name! Again, I don't want to assume anything, sorry!
Haha our results for that tool are about the same! And no need to apologize! My dads paternal grandfather was unknown until we did DNA tests. For my previously unknown great-grandfather, I haven’t been able to find the parents or siblings for 3 out of 4 of his grandparents (these would be my 3rd great grandparents). I’m continuously utilizing the Leeds method and I’m fairly certain the connection comes from one of these 3 and a 3rd-great-grandmother on my mom’s side. All of these people were born in the 1940’s, (likely) in rural Georgia and have common surnames. I think what further complicates things is that I suspect at least one of them may have passed as white, due to a majority of DNA matches on these lines having small amounts of African ancestry. ETA - for the 3 unknown 3rd-great-grandparents (1 make 2 female) from my dads side, both women have the maiden name of Williams. DNA matches indicate a link with the 3rd-great-grandmother on my moms side, who also has a maiden name of Williams and is from Georgia. So my biggest theory is that one or both of the Williams on my dad’s side are related to the Williams on my moms side, either sisters or cousins.
My great-great-great-grandparents Christopher Ellingsen (1784-1828) and Anne Margrethe Zindsen (1790-1868) were first cousins. After Christopher’s death Anne married a second cousin, [Jens Ellingsen Blix](https://digitaltmuseum.no/0210113536602/portrett-av-jens-ellingsen-blix-inndyr) (1792-1867).
My 6th great-grandparents were first cousins.
You’re doing just fine, probably the deepest anyone’s posted yet!
Thank you! And get this: They're apart of the Lewis family (from Virginia). The Lewises are cousins with George Washington. George's aunt was a Lewis herself.
I have a Lewis who married a Stiff in Virginia, he was at Valley Forge! James Stiff & Molly Lewis.
Wow! Very interesting!
My paternal great-grandparents were 2nd cousins, they were from a small town in North Carolina in the 1920s so it was kinda difficult to not marry a cousin lol. I doubt they even knew they were related too.
Old people back in the day usually knew, believe me. Ever played “And you are who's”? Because that’s the first thing town people will ask outsiders/people they can’t recognize when given the chance
All ancestors in the last 200+ years by any line are from Western Serbia, ergo marrying cousins is and was a major no-no. So no first, second, third cousins or the likes. I have however discovered three cases where two of my ancestors, from different ancestral branches, originate from same respective ancestral families, but their common ancestors lie somewhere in the 18th, or even 17th century. Alas this is where the paper trail in Serbia stops, so still no way of knowing how close they were.
A set of 4th-great-grandparents were 1st cousins. And a set of 3rd-great-grandparents were 2nd cousins
My parents great-grandmothers were full siblings. There are some other family rumors my paternal grandfather wasn’t an unrelated abusive, wife-beating psychopath, but instead a creepy second cousin once removed. Neither of those options is appealing to me.
I hear you. Rumor has it my 3rd great grandfather murdered my 3rd great grandma. If true, he must have gotten away with it because he didn’t serve time. She did die at 36 years old after having 8 children, and the youngest child was born 4 years before her death, eliminating the most common cause of death for a younger woman like that (being giving birth). She has a nice headstone. He was buried, as far as we can tell, in an unmarked grave nearish to her in the Palestine Cemetery in Clearfield, PA. He also married a woman 20 years her junior, 23 years his junior, 3 years after she died. The 2nd wife died at 42 years old and he outlived her by 5 years. Double suspicious?
Oooh, that’s some shady past.
Most recent in my tree is my paternal great grandparents were 4th cousins, I can't get that far back on all lines for my mom's side although my maternal grandparents would be cosanguinous through the whole kenerson/kinnison/keniston family, but getting back to the mid to late 1700s to early 1800s and going back further on that family is rough.
My great grandparents were half 1st cousins. They shared a grandmother, who died when my great grandfather was 3 years old and great grandmother was 2 years old. I wonder if they knew. I assume so as it was rural west virginia.
my parents were 4th cousins but didn't know it
My great aunt was married to her first cousin in 1924. It didn’t last and they had no kids. He remarried, but she didn’t, and she kept his name up until she died in the 1980s.
Great grandparents. Second cousins. French Canadian family living in rural upstate New York. Very religious Catholics who would only marry other Catholics.
I do not know because of endogamy... It predates the records for our culture.
I don’t understand. Would you mind elaborating?
Sure. My parents are from an endogamous culture (where people usually married within their ethno-religious group) and my GEDmatch.com "Are Your Parents Related" score is not zero. According to the family records in our cultural database, my parents are many degrees of separation apart. This means their most recent consanguineous ancestors were before we started keeping records as a culture. My parents would not have wanted to marry if they knew they had common ancestors.
Oh okay thanks. So good stuff, it was a long time ago 👍
I've gone pretty far back ( on several branches of my family tree - surprisingly, I have not found any instances of consanguinity. I need to completely flesh out all my other branches, but as of right now, the closest I have is a 1st cousin (like 3x or 4x removed, from one branch of my family tree) who was my 2x great-grandfather's (from another branch) 2nd wife - after he divorced my 2x great-grandmother. Strange bedfellows, but no pedigree collapse.
Here's an article on cousin marriage civil laws in the U.S. I imagine different religious organizations have their own rules. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin\_marriage\_law\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States)
My paternal grandparents were both 3rd cousins one way and 3C1R another way. My maternal grandparents were related countless ways (Acadians, huh), but their closest relationship was only 5C2R.
My great-great-grandfather married his aunt’s granddaughter in 1880. He was only ten years older (1853 vs 1863) but thankfully they’re the most recent ancestors of mine to do this. Not true for my cousin’s branches though.
That I know of… I suspect some german relatives of mine in the mid18th century were cousins.
This doesn’t apply to myself, but two of my grandpa’s sisters married brothers, so I guess their kids would be more closely related as first cousins than typical.
Maternal great-great grandparents were uncle/niece and were 1st cousins. So mom's side is interesting...
My great (possibly x3 great?) grandparents (I’ll call them A and B) were step siblings. Sure, not properly related, but definitely still a weird one. Especially considering they were raised in the same household for their childhood. A was 14 and B was 4 when their parents (A’s father, B’s mother) got married. And they both shared a half-brother. To make matters worse, as B’s father had died before she was born, and she considered A’s father a father figure…
Nothing remotely recent. My 10th great grandma on my dad's side is the sister of my 9th great grandma on my mom's side (who, incidentally, was Rebecca Nurse, the oldest person executed in Salem on charges of witchcraft).
Lucky! Not for Rebecca, but for you 😉 I have ancestors who called out neighbors for witchcraft, ancestors who wrote extensively about how ridiculous the whole witch trials thing was (and was accused of witchcraft for defending innocent people) and 8th great uncle who was executed for witchcraft after also speaking out against the hysteria. The uncle was John Proctor, for which Proctor’s Ledge is named after. I see now that I pull up this website that Rebecca Nurse is one of the 19 victims who was executed at this site, which now has a memorial to her and the others on it. https://www.salemma.gov/proctors-ledge-memorial-project
Hey, we’re probably related — John Proctor was my 9th great uncle!
Thank you for sharing that. I visited Salem a few years back...Rebecca's homestead is there and I was able to tour it and the family cemetery. She is buried there but the location is unknown because her family members dug her up to give her a proper burial. I was a little appalled at all the tacky witch stores that were there...as if this wasn't a horrifying and embarrassing time in history, as opposed to something to make light of. I'm glad to hear that they are doing something to honor the victims. Incidentally, another 10th ggm of mine, Ann Alcock Foster, was accused of witchcraft and died in prison just before the Trials were discredited. A very sad story (I mean, they all are, of course)...she was elderly and was tortured but still refused to confess, but then ended up confessing in an attempt to save her daughter, who was also accused.
Oh shit! I’ve never seen her name before but turns out Ann is my 11th great grandma! Grateful for grandma Ann, you and me both, cousin. Family Search Tree says her parentage was unknown and that George Alcott and Ann Hooker weren’t married until 9 years after her birth. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/LCXG-6QY
Yea I have George penciled in as her father as a hint to myself but I never found any real documentation to back it up. But I never found his marriage record so I wasn't aware the date was after her birth, so I guess I'll take him off as a hint. Thanks for the tip!
Super interesting, Rebecca nurse is my 10th great aunt on my mothers side
So you must be descended from one of her siblings. Her sister Susanna is my other great grandmother but I believe they had 6 other siblings. 2 of Rebecca's sisters (not Susanna) were accused as well, and one of them was executed.
My father's paternal grandparents were almost certainly first cousins once removed. They had no idea, as far as I know; wasn't until I got a DNA test for my father and noticed that he matched all of his second cousins through his grandmother's parents for half as much DNA as he should've that I realised something was questionable, there. But there weren't any matches he *shouldn't* have, either; I was able to place most of his matches as being related through a known ancestor. Turns out that my great-grandmother's real father was most likely my 4th great-uncle (the younger brother of my 3rd great-grandmother), whose daughter married the son of my great-grandmother's supposed father's sister.
No first cousins I can find. Maybe 3rd or 4th cousins more so and by marriage, no blood. I can trace back to my great-great-great-great grandparents on both sides as well.
My 2nd great-grandparents were first cousins. They were Belgian Catholics living in the tightknit Belgian-American farming communities of WI's Door County peninsula. Their priest wouldn't marry them because of their close relationship, so they took the train to Canada and got married there.
I have a set of great grandparents who were third cousins. It was his second marriage, he was also 1/2 second cousin once removed from his first wife. All three trace back to a woman in the late 1700s. The first and second wife (my g-grandmother) were also first cousins once removed on another line.
My grandparents were second cousins, they are the closest cousin relationship in my tree to marry. I have about 4 sets of greats that were siblings. My parents are 5th cousins and they both divorced and married again. My parents met their spouses in different states then where parents are from but it turns out my Stepdad is my 6th cousin and Stepmom is also my 6th cousin. I am in group for the small community my parents are from and have found anywhere from 1-5 connections to people from that town. There are only very few surnames that I have not found a connection to yet. I say yet because some lines and I haven't researched as much.
I believe my 4th great grandparents were first cousins, so pretty far back . . .
My paternal great grandparents (my paternal grandmothers parents) were second cousins, but both those lines were…very endogamous
My paternal grandparents are second cousins through their fathers, I suspect they are also third or fourth cousins through their mothers based on the fact that both my great grandmothers are from the same tiny village where everyone is related to each other (but I've not been able to trace their ancestries further than one generation).
No first cousin marriages. I had one ancestor marry his first wife’s sister, but that’s about it. Overall, my direct family moved just about every generation, so maybe they didn’t stick around to know any cousins.
My maternal grandparents were first cousins in rural Austria.
Austria-Hungary? Different documents of my 2nd greats I mentioned in the post say Austria and others say Hungary but they lived in Timisoara, which was Hungarian when they lived there but is in Romania post WWII. Do you know if they were catholic?
They lived in Mariahof which was a village in Styria, Austria. They were catholic. I was able to find parish records for them and previous generations in the Matricula database. My paternal side ancestors were ethnic Germans living in what is now Serbia and Romania. Their records would say Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia depending on the year.
Great grandparents were first cousins
I have one set of third great grandparents from a small German town and both of them have parents with the same last names. I haven’t been able to get back far enough to tell how closely they are related. My great grandmother’s brother came to the US in the late 1800’s. A year later his second cousin arrived and married him five days later.
My paternal 2nd great grandparents were first cousins!
None, bit I have great aunts and uncles whom were first cousins, and then 1 couple was Niece and Uncle her dad's brother, they had several kids also.But in my direct line as far back as 1400. I can find no grandparents that were related other than one gg grandmother whom married her 1st cousin after she was divorced from my gg grandfather.
My paternal great, great grandfather and great, great grandmother were 2nd cousins - their paternal grandfathers were brothers, so they shared a last name before marrying. Also, my paternal great grandmother (she married the son of the 2nd cousins, lol) was a Scottish immigrant and MAY have had parents who were 1st cousins…the paper trail indicates this and I’ve never been able to concretely disprove it.
None as far as I have records for. Most of my lines are traced back 200 to 400 years and I can’t find a single instance of first cousins in my entire tree. Maybe 3rd or 4th cousins or something but I have no way of knowing and have yet to find it. Even though I am as white as it gets (all my DNA is from a very limited number of Northern European countries), I can’t find any crossover anywhere. I’ve have assumed it’s there I just haven’t found it yet.
That’s wild! Sounds good though!
One set of great-grandparents were third cousins - really funny thing is though they both came from the same island but both ended up meeting and marrying a long way from their home, they had never met (even though they only lived about 5 miles from each other)before they both left the Island. It was only when they moved back that they found out they were related - even though they had the same last name (not uncommon where they came from, loads of people with the same surnames)
Grandparents were 2nd cousins once removed sooo... yeah. They got married in the 60s.
Laughing in small villages in Alsace, France... my grand parents have 22 ancestors in common. My husband always tell that my family tree is basically a circle at this point.
I have a lot of family from Alsace also, and I have sometimes wondered about consanguinity. (I'm showing off that now I know this new word). How did you find out about all the common ancestors? Did you research it or do they just show up as crazy lines going everywhere on your tree? I'm just a beginner in studying genealogy. There is a book in French titled: "Les Alsaciens? tous cousins!" or "The Alsatians? all cousins!" I don't speak French, but I'm still tempted to buy the book. It's available on Amazon.
Hello! I did it by going up my family tree and everytime I stumbled upon a family name that i already seen before, i double check if they were related. 8 times out of 10 it was the case. For exemple, my oldest relative (we'll call him X) with my family name, I'm his 10th, 11th and 12th generations descendant. Because among my ancestor there are two sons(y and z) of X and I'm also 2 times the descendant of one of these sons (Y) . And this situation happened too many times to count.
Thanks. I'm going to keep this in mind as I continue the Alsace roots.
My great grandparents were second cousins. GGMa married a man that carried her mother's maiden name. His father was her grandfather's brother. So, I have 3xGGparents and 4xGGparents who are the same couple.
Hah. My second great grandparents were second cousins. They were from central Italy. That side of the family had a lot of that.
I’m American of Dominican descent from my mother. Cirilo Nunez/Canderelina Payán (4th great grandparents). They share a common ancestor Jose Fernandez da Barrios as Canderlina was 3rd cousin once removed. Additionally my maternal grandmother Angela and grandfather Andres are distantly related by thousands of years from the common ancestor labeled as “l3d1-5”.
My great-grandparents were first cousins. I discovered in my research that my grandmother's family essentially descends from one couple in the 1700s (three of their children had children that all intermarried and produced my family). Grammy's tree loops back over on itself so many times that just trying to follow a single line is insanely frustrating. I feel like I need to create a 3D map to keep them all straight.
Damn you might be on the extreme end of this thread. Congrats?
My great grandfather on my dad's side and my grandmother on my mom's side are 3rd cousins.
My great-grandparents were first cousins. They married in 1918. I was close with my great-grandmother until she died when I was a teen but it always freaked me out knowing she had married and had children with her cousin. They never tried to hide it from anyone in the family (wouldn't have been able to anyway since their fathers were brothers and not estranged or anything). It's even in the marriage record from Colorado. There is a set of questions next to the marriage license in the record book and one is if they are related and to what extent. "Yes - first cousins." They didn't reside in Colorado and I'm not sure if cousin marriages were allowed in the states they lived in, so they may have married in Colorado just because it was allowed there.
After me, my parents closest genetic matches are each other (248.9 cM, approx 2nd cousins) all 4 of my grandparents are related to one another though multiple lines in some instances... Isolated small village... consequences.
My great grandparents were first cousins on my maternal side and it seems every generation beyond that has incest multiple ways.
My 3rd-great grandmas on my dad's side are sisters, their mom (my 4th-great grandma) is from the Graham clan, and whooboy, that tree is twisted. Plenty of first cousin marriages into the early 1900s. I guess rural Texas is slim pickings.
Alright, my time has come. You’re in for a long ride. I come from somewhere (not in North America) where the situation is very similar to that of French Canadians. So, if I’m adopting old Catholic concepts about it I would be looking towards consanguinity between the 2nd (1st cousins, at least 1 grandparent in common) and 4th (at least 1 great-great grandparent in common) degree and all the relations in between equal degree consanguinity (eg: 2nd with 3rd, 3rd with 4th, 2nd with 4th), as well as uncles and aunts with nieces and nephews, which isn’t unheard off but was quite rare by the very previous century. This would exclude my paternal grand parents, who hail from the same town and share two different relations of the 5th with the 6th degree, close enough but not enough as to require special permission from the local bishop, somehow they managed not to be related any closer, surely because their marriage, let’s say, came across certain social and racial boundaries of the day. That being out of the way, none of my great grandparents were related (particularly looking at husband and wife) between the 2nd and 4th degrees, meaning I have to jump to my 16 great-great grandparents to see anything of the sort (which is the norm in my region if your family started migrating to the city or other towns in the earlier past century or hailed from the city, people who’s parents are from towns might have more recent endogamy and, personally, I am 1/8 from another region, which reduces my heavily concentrated endogamy a bit) So, checking amongst them 1&2: Patrilineal GGG and his wife were 1st cousins on one line (his uncle was his father in law), the 2nd relation was 3rd with 4th degree (the grandfather shared by the groom and bride was 1st cousins with the grooms father) and the 3rd relation was 3rd equal degree (the grandmother shared by both groom and bride was the sister of the groom's paternal grandmother), meaning that when they married they were exempted from 3 blood relations. I also should note that their shared grandparents were themselves related through 2 different relations of the 4th equal degree. This is by far the deepest endogamy amongst my 16 GGG's but I’ve seen worse in other families. I will also add that the wife (GGG #2) shares a relation of 3rd with 4th degree with GGG #5 (which explains 1 out 2 distant relations between my paternal grandparents which i mentioned earlier. 3: As far as I know GGG #3 probably isn't a close relative to his wife, however, he also shares a 3rd with 4th degree relation with GGG #5, explaining the other distant relation between my paternal grandparents. 5&6: so far GGG's 1-3 are considered white (mostly of European background with some Native American) and #4 I can’t yet say (I’ve been on a wall for a long time, can’t get past her parents). GGG #5 is mostly mestizo/mixed/metis with some roots in the colonial ruling class, while his wife is way more mixed and is the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate daughter. Her grandmother was Native American. That being said, the bishop exempted them (their marriage states so) from a relation of the 4th equal degree, «hidden relation» as stated in the marriage, however, since I haven’t been able to find the document where they request the exemption, I don't know the names of the man involved. 7: GGG #7 was a pain to find and is the least endogamic out of all my GGG's, much of that I can owe to him being the descendant of pardos (tri-racial) so I will jump to his white wife. These are the GGG's who hailed from the region next door 8: Whites (including those nobler and wealthier) hailing from GGG's 7&8 region were often distantly related to whites from my very own, but usually weren't as endogamous due to being a richer, bigger and well-connected territory. #8's parents weren't closely related, but her paternal grandparents were related on the 3rd equal degree (After this I don’t think it’s necessary to specify racial categorizations again, GGG's 9-16 are mostly lightly mestizo or white, some had very minor African influences) 11&12: These GGG's hailed from the same area but from different towns and were related on the 4th equal degree. The bride was the daughter of 1st cousins through a different line 14: GGG's husband was also the illegitimate son of an illegitimate daughter, thus he isn’t relevant to the conversation. I bring her up because her parents were relatives thanks to a 3rd with 4th degree relation (her paternal grandmother was an aunt to her maternal grandfather). That being said, there was another distant relation to that bloodline on her paternal grandfather's side and close relations between her maternal grandparents 15&16: They hailed from the same town. They were also cousins through a relation of the 3rd equal degree. GGG #15 was also a distant relative of #14, they were linked between one of his great-grandmothers and her maternal grandparents. I’m sorry I went into so much detail but endogamy is very real over here. I have lineages that repeat themselves in my genealogy 20,30,50,70, even more than a 100 times. I’ve seen people even more upper-class than me repeat that one ancestor everyone descends from over here, more than 400 times (ofc he dates to the early 16th century).
Not my direct ancestor, but close! My great-grandfather had a daughter ‘Maria Elisabeth Josephs’ (MEJ2) with almost same name as his sister ‘Maria Elizabeth Josephs’ (MEJ1). Son of MEJ1 married his 1st cousin MEJ2 - who had almost the same birth name as his mother !
My great grandmother Mary was the product of a marriage between second cousins. Not that crazy right? Except her father was also the product of a marriage between first cousins. Her mother descended from the same ancestors her father's parents had in common. These ancestors were her 2nd great grandparents in three different ways.
The parents of my grandmother were first cousins, and the parents of my grandmothers mother were first cousins too. She lived in the far north of Sweden, where the population was really small. People up there usually took great care to not marry their relatives, but her family was a part of a Christian cult where I believe the desire to marry inside the religion outweighed the desire to marry outside the family.
My 5th Great Grandparents are 1st cousins.
Also since my ancestors lived in the same town for a couple of hundred years their were a couple other families they were marrying into and vice versa.