Genealogy Chat

My maternal grandmother married her cousin. I haven't put his ancestors on here as the site can't cope. He is just entered by name, date and place of birth as her husband, so that the surname can be included in my names. The full picture is on our computer on a programme which can adequately show the details.

Hi Christine, The voice of reason! I agree with everything you said. My grandparents were first cousins, and I have had some very ignorant reactions from people when it has come up in conversation. There were no problems with any of their children, or their 6 grandchildren or their 3 great grandchildren. Of course my family was lucky not to have any genetic disorder risks that could be multiplied by this union, but the risk is there whether you are blood related or not. I suspect nowadays that blood tests would be advise--though it is my understanding that blood tests are required by some US states for all marriages anyway. It certainly has helped in my search for relatives! My family is huge but my research is considerably cut down by gran's mother and granda's father being siblings. As far as entering them on GR, GR told me about 18months ago that they were looking into a way around this, as it is a regular complaint. The problem is still not fixed. I entered some relatives twice in order to get around it--it causes no real problems as I know I've done it that way. Their are similar examples of difficulties--For example, in my Dad's tree, I have a father and son marrying mother and daughter! Sal

I also think it's probably more common than people think. It used to be thought of as something the rich would do, to keep their bloodlines pure? But in small villages, I expect it happened, as otherwise there wasn't much choice of people to marry! The only example of problems I can think of that come to mind was with the royals, one of Victoria's children being a haemophiliac (sp?). The russian Tsar's son was also affected by this, and they were relations - cousins - of Victoria's family. In my own family, my uncle has a rare muscle disorder, a genetic condition in which both parents must be a carrier. So using this as an example, if I married a cousin I would have to be extra careful in checking neither of us carried the gene, as it would be more likely that we would. Also my sister married someone with the same surname as ours and he isn't related as far as we know, but I expect, as I keep going back, somewhere along the line I'll find he is! I don't see any problem with cousins marrying and having perfectly healthy children, in fact these days I'm sure it would be much easier as any genetic conditions that might cause a problem could probably be detected beforehand. It is hard putting them on the tree though, so GR please sort it out!

My great grandparent's were first cousin's.They married in 1895, but sadly they get the blame for causing the bad gene's,just a family joke really.

More on Victoria's tree (because I'm bored and find it interesting!). Haemophilia is transmitted to males via their mothers, who don't manifest the disease. This is because it's transmitted on the female chromosone X and is recessive. In other words, males have XY and females have XX, so a male who inherits a haeomophiliac X will exhibit the symptoms, whereas a female who inherits will just be a carrier, because her other X is dominant over the recessive haemophiliac X. Victoria was a carrier and of her 9 children, her son Leopald was haemophiliac. Her other 3 sons were healthy. Of her 5 daughters, only one - Vicky, was definitely NOT a carrier. As I mentioned before, the last Tsar of Russia's son was haemophiliac. This was inherited because the child's mother was Alexandra (Queen Victoria's granddaughter), and a carrier of the gene. Haemophilia was also introduced into the Royal house of Germany via Victoria's decendants. Her eldest daughter Vicky had a son named Henry. He was not haemophiliac, as Vicky didn't carry it, but he married Irene who was his cousin - Vicky's neice, Victoria's granddaughter - a carrier. Irene and Henry had 3 sons, 2 were haemophiliac. The strange thing about this case, is that if Vicky HAD been a carrier, and Henry HAD been heamophiliac, then he and Irene might have had a heamophiliac daughter, by inheriting 2 recessive X chromosones. This would have been very rare.

Hi Angie, My friends always joke about the 'in-breeding' in my family too! Got even worse whem I told them I'd traced my family tree back to a certain area of the country where 'in-breeding' is rumoured to be rife...

Catherine, despite GR saying ages ago that they were looking at how to resolve this, the only way round it at present is to enter each cousin twice, and possibly some of their relatives too. I did this a while ago and it really doesn't matter apart from when viewing the actual tree --which obviously is inaccurate. Gwyneth, can you tell us what program it is you use? It would be a big help to me and Catherine!