Double relationships, cousin marriages etc.

[7igerby7he7ail]

I have recently been in contact with a distant relative.
It seems that his great grandfather [my 2nd cousin 4xr] married his neice -his sister's daughter [and my 3rd cousin 2xr]
Makes him related to me in two ways.

I am supposing that this was illegal then [last quarter of 19th century]
I have quite a few cousin marriages also.
What an inbred lot we are!

Anybody else have dubious unions in their tree?

[Galium]

Marriage of first cousins was, and is perfectly legal .*

Marrying your niece/nephew or uncle/aunt was, and still is illegal. 

*In the UK.  There are places eg in some US states where it isn't.

[stanmapstone]

See http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,398196.msg2683321.html#msg2683321

Stan

[Redroger]

It was certainly illegal, but extremely common particularly in village communities. One pair of my grandfather's 2Xgreat grandparents were also a set of his great grandparents. Daughter of eldest son married youngest son, who was 20 years younger than his brother (her father). Then, late 18th century outside the bounds permitted, and I believe still is.
If the clergy didn't know this happened then they must have been blind.

[7igerby7he7ail]

I am supposing they 'got away with it', because they lived in different counties and had different surnames.

These two have lots of descendants by the way, they had at least 6 children all of whom who married and had children of their own [totalling 15 ]. This lot spread themselves about and 6 of the 15 emigrated to various parts. One of them married a first cousin, one married his brother's widow. Makes family research fun eh?

[Redroger]

Don't you believe it. These marriages were common across the country, or at least they seem to have been from reports at Family History Society meetings, and reading postings on Roots Chat etc. The village I referred to in my previous post was only a small village, and the clergy must have known, but turned a blind eye due to the impracticalities of church law.

[LizzieW]

Not quite so intertwined, but I've found ancestors who all married each others brothers and sisters, quite legal of course, but this was in Manchester in the late 1800s.  Surely they had a greater pool of potential partners than their marriages imply.

[drodgers34]

Came across a real example of "Double Cousins" where 2 siblings marry 2 siblings (MF to FM or MM to FF) and have children. The children of the marriages share both sets of grandparents and are the genetic equivalent of half siblings.

A special version of the double cousins is where identitcal twins marry identical twins, The children are cousins but the genetic equivalent of siblings.

[7igerby7he7ail]

'Cousin couples' and 'cousin marriages' etc at Wiki*****
Includes most of European Royalty [of course] but other notable cousin marriages such as Darwin and Einstein and links to other articles on the subject.