13 Oct Search for family tree- It’s all Relative
Good morning possible cousins,
Most of us grew up knowing we couldn’t and shouldn’t of even think of marrying our cousins. Did we ever wonder why that was? Did we assume that’s it’s always been like that?
Back in the day, how far a man could ride on horseback was often the limit to whom he could choose to court. For a boy to even meet a girl with future marriage in mind, she would have to attend his church as outside of immediate neighbors the folks you met at church were likely the only ones of marital age. When folks moved to the frontier they often moved with folks of the same religion and then in their new community built a new church or meeting house that was the center of their rural community. The boy and girl might exchange small talk after church in the presence of parents and neighbors. If the chemistry seemed to work, then the boy would get up the courage to ask the girl’s father if he could give her a ride back home after church. If he was from a family of means this could be on a wagon, if not then horseback or for down on their luck folks by mule. If the girl’s parents approved they would ride slightly ahead of the parents on the way back from church, just so the parents could make sure that the girl wasn’t hanging on too tightly to the boy.
If the parents thought the ride went all right, then the boy would be asked to stay for dinner, which would be served early enough that the boy still had light to get home and that there wouldn’t be any non-daylight time for the boy and girl to spend alone. At some point, the lack of romance from riding on a horse likely prompted shorter courtships and quicker proposals.
If you think of the filters being applied in selection of a spouse- rural population, nearby geography, similar age, same church, chemistry, parent approval, often time the only girls to select from where your first and second cousins as anyone that wasn’t such simply lived too far away to even meet, nevertheless court.
One of the religions that kept the best records were the Society of Friends, better known as Quakers. Because they kept great records and they were preserved it’s much easier to trace your Quaker ancestry than that of folks of other religions. My wife Andrea and I are 10th cousins on a Quaker line where the common ancestors James and Jane Knea Morgan were married in 1673, so we had over 300 years for the three-eyed mutants to shake out of the family tree. My Andrea who has a far greater Quaker heritage is related to both of our sons-in-law due to them each having a small amount of Quaker heritage during the late 1600s. Our grandchildren all have ten toes!
I remember my dad (who doesn’t have Quaker heritage) teasing my mom because back in the late 1600’s she had the same Quaker Great (…) Grandparents James and Hannah Phelps Perisho that came up 3 times in her tree (yes the tree forked together). The teasing stopped when I found his Pennsylvania and Ohio Presbyterians (I add that because there is a tendency to think this only happened in the south) ancestors had intermarried so often that he had the same Great (…)Grandparents William and Margaret Colville married in 1717, 4 times in his tree. The Marquis family married their cousins so often that you had families where some of the children were mathematical and musical geniuses and other children were idiots (not my term, but one used in the census).
So far the record ancestor for one person that I have seen is the ancestors of my sister-in-law were named Matthew and Ann Braswell Strickland who were Great Grandparents on 7 of her lines. That certainly saved time on research!
So likely all of us have some of that cousin-level marriage and it wasn’t just the royal families who had that challenge. Of course, their reasoning for royals doing so wasn’t just proximity, but keeping the royal bloodline pure. Of course, it wasn’t just Presbyterians, Quakers and Royal Families where this happened as you can read in the linked article below.
Scientists Found 125 Cases of Extreme Inbreeding in the U.K.’s Biobank
September 03, 2019 Modern Humans are the Result of Interbreeding with Extinct Relatives Researchers have identified 125 cases of extreme inbreeding in the U.K. Biobank—a huge genetic study including data from half a million people—allowing them to look at the health impacts of incest. The team defined extreme inbreeding as the result of offspring produced by first or second-degree relatives. This would include siblings, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. It would not include the offspring of first
Read in Newsweek: https://apple.news/A84NF2OAvRmu_EnU6n5kZvQ
Now you will be thinking well what would people call of these inbreeds, and what will they call me?
Here’s a link on how to understand how someone is related to you as it’s always a little hard to understand what a 3rd cousin twice removed means.
https://blog.genealogybank.com/genealogy-101-who-is-my-first-cousin-once-removed.html
Do you wonder if you have any forks in your tree? Let Dancestors discover your tree, your stories, and build a beautiful book for your family that shows where you came from and possibly even assure that you have no forks in your tree!
The stories and pictures we discover always make for fun conversation at family events and help to preserve the legacy of your family! Don’t have stories disappear with time, reach out today and start a conversation with us!
Dan
(to download a copy of this article, click here)
