Rachel was the daughter of Lyon and Mary Anne Benjamin. Lyon's brother, Henry, was the father of Michael Henry Benjamin. Among Rachel's siblings were Michael Menachem Benjamin and Abraham Louis Benjamin, all of whom were in Grahamstown, South Africa at various points in the 1800s. I am a descendant of both of the latter (via my paternal grandfather and separately via my paternal grandmother), both of whom married daughters of Simeon and Eleanor Marcus, Amelia and Miriam, respectively.
I am a great-grandson of Abraham Louis (via his son Louis Edmund i.e. my paternal grandfather) and a great-grandson of Jane Jael (Benjamin) Langner, who was Michael Menachem's daughter and mother of my paternal grandmother, Lilian Langner.
One thing that has amazed me is how frequently they journeyed back and forth from South Africa to the UK all their lives. With such a tiny pool from whom to select, these marriages were all arranged by older family members. It is noteworthy that Rachel, like my grandmother, was 28 at the time of marriage -- pretty much on the shelf. I've attached a table showing Michael Henry and Rachel were first cousins. Her father had died in Grahamstown in 1838 and her mother eventually went back to England and died in May 1857, two months before her marriage. Michael Henry was already 37 so it was a good solution for both.
Her brother, Abraham Louis, my great-grandfather, got married two years later. My grandfather was born in 1865 and was 48 when he married my grandmother who was 28, in 1913.
