RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Corryn on Sunday 17 January 21 09:58 GMT (UK)
-
My wife and I are distant cousins, we share 5x ggrandparents.
In my tree there are another 4 cousin marriages ranging from first cousins to more distant, all are in Shropshire in the 1800's.
How common is this?
Do other RC'ers have as many or maybe more?
Corryn
-
It's very common!
Especially in more rural areas -where the availability of eligible people to marry was much smaller.
-
My grandparents were 1st cousins,their dad's were brothers,the two nearest in age.
Back then it was an easy way to introduce men to women and the parents were already quite happy with their choice as they knew the family.
-
I suppose that makes sense and it's nice to know it wasn't a rare occurrence
My wife and I didn't know we were related. It was only after doing family research and talking to her grandfather we discovered this.
Corryn
-
My great grandparents were 1st cousins. His first wife died so I think in some cases unmarried women in their 30s might think it better to get married than stay being an old maid as was the case then.
-
Marrying distant cousins must have been quite common, as beyond second cousins, most people would not have been aware of it, especially when the name was different. I found from doing the research that I had been at school with 2 separate 3rd/4th cousins. My grandfather said the Pays in the next village were not related, but of course they were!
-
Very common, several of my Essex ancestors married first cousins. It can also be handy at finding previous generations. Allen Taylor wed Ann Stock in 1811 in Essex, and they were first cousins. Ann's parents were also first cousins.
-
Very common. In my tree I have several instances of sets of siblings marrying cousins and then their children marrying eachother. In many cases it was a way of keeping assets in the family.
I also discovered a distant cousin marriage but I don't know if the couple concerned knew they were related.
The royal families of Europe, especially the Habsburgs, made cousin marriages a policy.
-
The legality of marrying first cousins changes with jurisdiction and time. It was legal then illegal and now legal in parts of Australia. Interestingly the Church of England common prayer book used to list who one could marry. While marrying close blood relatives was allowed, you were not allowed to marry a dead partners' sibling. So if a man wished to marry his dead wife's sister it was illegal. So a marriage well out of parish of bride and groom may indicate a man marrying his dead wife's widowed sister. Also not meant to marry your nephew by marriage. Neither of these genetically risky, where cousin marriage is. However, a marriage of convenience between cousins with no kids would do no harm == and keep the money in the family and provide a cheap housekeeper. ;D
-
And look how that worked out for them!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/distinctive-habsburg-jaw-was-likely-result-royal-familys-inbreeding-180973688/
-
Danny Dyer would be interested in that article then on royals. Unless there was a NPE on the line inbetween Danny himself and Lionel Talmache. ;D
-
I'm working on my Great Grandmother's Holden family at the moment and it seems that they didn't look too far outside the family circle when it came to finding a spouse.
My Great Aunt Maud married her second cousin whilst, not to be outdone, her brother also married a second cousin descended from a different Great Uncle.
Great Nan's Brother and Sister were married to a sister and a brother. I've found this arrangement in other branches of the family and it seems to be quite common.
The most surprising marriage was that of Great Nan's other brother who married his step-niece, the daughter of Great Nan's first husband and his first wife.
Makes drawing a tree diagram tricky! ;D
Tony.
-
I have received several PMs asking me to post some info about New South Wales marriage laws in the 19th Century or at least post some links to earlier threads on this.
So, January 1788, First Fleet arrived in Sydney, males landed and commenced to erect tents for accommodation. February 1788 the female convicts were landed. February 1788, marriage ceremonies conducted.
1810 General orders issued by NSW governor, including encouraging marriages (I note that this governor, Lachlan Macquarie, was married to his cousin, Elizabeth Campbell).
1823 Charter of Justice - establishing Supreme Courts ie courts with authority to rule on validity of statute laws. - so any English law after 18 July 1823 had NO effect (unless they expressly named the particular colony they sought to legislate on and thereby over-rule) on the statute laws of the British Colonies of Australia/New South Wales which at that time included: Tasmania (hived off later in 1823); Western Australia (1827); South Australia (formed in the 1830s); New Zealand (1840); Victoria (1851); Queensland (1859). (Northern Territory was part of NSW in 1820s).
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=648372.0
NSW marriage Acts that were repealed by NSW marriage Act of 1855, effective from commencement of civil registration 1 March 1856:
6 Geo IV no. 21 passed 1 November 1825
5 William IV no. 2 passed 4 July 1834
7 William IV no. 6, passed 5 August 1836
2 Vic No. 13, passed 29 August 1838
3 Vic No. 7 passed 5th September 1839
3 Vic No. 23 passed 19th November 1839
4 Vic No. 14 passed 23 September 1840.
1856
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=660501.0
noting it includes the following link:
http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb//au/legis/nsw/num_act/ma1855n30112/
NSW Marriage Act 1855
…
14
Every Marriage celebrated in this Colony before the commencement of this Act by any Minister of Religion or person ordinarily officiating as such shall be deemed to have been from the time of the celebration thereof a perfectly legal and valid Marriage (not withstanding any non-compliance with forms or other irregularity attending the celebration) to all intents and purposes.
15.
Provided that nothing in the previous section or in the fifth section of this Act shall legalize any Marriage declare or made (or which shall hereafter be declare or made) invalid by any competent Court or by Act or Council nor any Marriage where either party thereto had another wife or husband then living nor any Marriage which would have been or would be void but for those sections by reason of relationship kindred or alliance or of fraud or incapacity to contract Marriage nor any Marriage where (the same being at the time of its celebration invalid) either of the parties thereto shall afterward and before the passing of this Act have intermarried with some other person.
In Victoria in 1906 cousins can marry .... see
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/222626752 Weekly Times 10 Sept 1906 and
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/222532696 Weekly Times 29 Sept 1906, Addie asks 'Can first cousins legally marry', and the response given is 'Yes'.
However, the Catholic Advocate of 23 March 1912 had a different view - the question was slightly different too. 'Can first cousins marry in the Catholic Church?' https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/258455746
And again in 1916, it is confirmed that first cousins can marry https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/132719362
and from 1930 in Western Australia people were still confused about first cousins marrying
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/38520012
But basically, after decades of enjoying researching my own ancestors, and having a very helpful pool of older relatives, including retired : Clergy, archivists, senior NSW bdm officers, ... I am not aware of any statute requirements banning first cousins marrying in any of the colonies or states that form the Commonwealth of Australia.
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/table-kindred-and-affinity My C of E 'The Book of Common Prayer, Hymns A & M' at page 384 has a similar table to the one in that link 'Wherein whososever are related are forbidden in scripture and our laws to marry, so no mention of first cousins being forbidden to marry.
On a lighter note, Hymn No. 707 is the National Anthem .... God Save the King. - and of course it is referring to George VI.
Add to be pedantically correct, the table in my Book of Common Prayer is headed
A Table of Kindred and Affinity
JM
-
I have at least seven inter family marriages in one branch of the tree over the space of about 130 years. It wasn't to keep the wealth in the family and only one was a rural marriage. Then again they all seemed to live on the same three streets in a city for decades, in one census 30 households all descended from one couple are present though there are less than 100 dwellings.
It's a nightmare in the birth index and they weren't very imaginative with forenames either, one census household has four chaps by the same name, two with the same birth year and place and the relationships look really odd as the head never had kids of his own. He married outside of the family and seems a real oddball. ::)
-
Thank you all for your contributions.
Cousin marriages seem to be more common than I thought.
I knew that the church issued rules as to who could not marry. I remember seeing a very old list in the church at Michaelchurch-on-Arrow on the Powys/Herefordshire border. (I find it difficult to pass a small rural church without popping in for a look).
There was no fortune or land to protect in my Shropshire family so the marriages must have been for lack of opportunity to meet many people and as Carol said the families already knew each other so no need for vetting.
Corryn
-
I've come across more than one in my research, but on a slightly different and rather amusing note, although legality doesn't come into it.
I've a long gone relative who, when her husband died, married her dead sisters husband, then he died and she married another dead sisters husband. At least they all knew each other. ;D
Griff
-
I have just checked the descendants of my most researched gr gr grandfather. His children were born between 1819 and 1843, and the earlier generations were entirely rural. There are no cousin marriages at all, but they probably went further afield in youth for work than those living and working in large towns.
-
I've found a multitude of inter-cousin marriages in my tree, to the extent that down one line in 19th century Essex practically everyone is related to everybody else multiple times. Repeating forenames of course just to make things a bit more challenging. And today I've come across a marriage between two people with the surname Clark. The bride is so far unknown to me but the groom's parents were Clark and Clarke. And yes they were cousins, the family seemingly illiterate so the final "e" was sometimes present and sometimes not.
The Clarke bride, mother of the son who married another Clark as described above, was widowed in WW1. So a few years later she married her first husband's brother and bore another child. Not sure whether this (the marriage) was legal or not at the time but I have to admit that given what we know now about genetics I find it amazing that all of the children seem to have married and survived to old age.
Jane :-)
-
I've found a multitude of inter-cousin marriages in my tree, to the extent that down one line in 19th century Essex practically everyone is related to everybody else multiple times. Repeating forenames of course just to make things a bit more challenging. And today I've come across a marriage between two people with the surname Clark. The bride is so far unknown to me but the groom's parents were Clark and Clarke. And yes they were cousins, the family seemingly illiterate so the final "e" was sometimes present and sometimes not.
The Clarke bride, mother of the son who married another Clark as described above, was widowed in WW1. So a few years later she married her first husband's brother and bore another child. Not sure whether this (the marriage) was legal or not at the time but I have to admit that given what we know now about genetics I find it amazing that all of the children seem to have married and survived to old age.
Jane :-)
And me, Essex research for me can be a pain as I have several first cousin marriages there, and they often had common surnames like Clarke, Wood or Taylor, or surnames that are very common in Essex such as Stock, Hurrell, Mead and Thorogood. And those surnames are common enough in Essex without first cousin marriages, hence why I found on most of my Essex lines I am lucky to get back before 1750. The ones I have traced further tended to come from South Suffolk or Cambs.
-
I'm so glad that I only have a few cousin marriages in my tree.
Compared to mine some peoples trees must resemble bramble bushes. ;D ;D
Take care all
Coryn