Intermarrying

[Asa]

Like most of us, I'm descended from cousins who married and am used to most of a rural village being connected but I'm fascinated and astounded that one great x 4 grandfather is descended from three daughters of a Berkshire yeoman (his 3 x great grandfather in every case) as well as from their maternal aunt. This means he's descended four times from the same couple who died only a century before he was born. Is this quite unusual?

[Olde Crone]

I think it's quite unusual, but not all that unusual, lol. I have numerous instances in a village tree I have compiled and there are many even more concentrated relationships than that.

I think it proves two things: the lack of marriage partner choice in very rural communities...and also that intermarrying does not weaken the line unless the line was weak to begin with!

(And doesn't it save paper when compiling a paper tree, haha)

OC

[Asa]

Ha! I agree with the weakening of the line - at any rate, their descendants were bright sturdy folk:) - and the saving of paper! Having said that, I have spent a lot of time and paper trying to map the wider relationships in these few parishes.

I wonder where all the land must have gone...

[Olde Crone]

Asa

Well, in one instance, my folk sold the farm which they had lived on for nearly 400 years to the railway and decamped into the middle of Manchester, where most of them promptly died from TB.

OC

[Merry]

It probably happens more times than we know.

Having researched for years and years I don't know the names of three lots of 3xg-grandparents for any of my 4xg-grandparents! In fact, I don't know the names of any of my 9xg-grandparents, never mind a team of them, or one repeated over and over! lol

(actually, that may not be entirely true, as this very morning I may have found the names of my very first 9xg-grandparents, the very first people on my tree born in the 1500s - if only I could find a baptism for the 6xg I would be happier, so I may be posting a research thread any time soon!)

[Asa]

Yes - I think I'm lucky that with a combination of wills and what PRs survive, I've managed to piece this all together with confidence. I'm sure there are more cousin marriages I can't prove so far.

[Olde Crone]

What gets me is that people with the same names married each other generations apart! Thomas Green and Mary Robinson married three times in my tree, in the 1500s, the 1700s and the 1800s, all from the same small village and all related.

OC

[Asa]

I was looking at something a little similar the other day OC - the same surnames keep cropping up but no idea where they came from

[Lindsay]

What amazes me is the number of cousin marriages in my tree for people in London. It's not as if they were short of alternatives!

And if they didn't marry cousins, they married their uncle's wife's niece, or their cousin's wife's sister.

I sometimes get the impression they never socialised outside the family.

[Olde Crone]

Lindsay

I long ago realised that no one in my family tree ever married a random stranger, until my own mum and dad met during WW2. They only met because of the war and would certainly never have met any other way.

I've also noticed a trend in mt family for widowers to marry a left-over on the shelf spinster rlation! I have visions of the families putting their heads together:

"Eeeh! Poor old George! She died and left him with all those kids to bring up. What about our Beattie, she'd make him a good wife and he'll not be all that fussy now." Lucky old Beattie.

OC

[Asa]

Lindsay, my Londoners did a lot of marrying connections. It's like London was full of little villages :-)

Poor Beattie indeed, OC lol

[Lindsay]

Lol OC!

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Asa, and London was a collection of villages. Many of my east enders lived in the same small number of streets for generations.

[Janet]

Very interesting thread. By the way, New York City is still to this day a collection of villages. Outsiders tend not to recognize that, but it's oh so true.

[Kit]

I'm fascinated and astounded that one great x 4 grandfather is descended from three daughters of a Berkshire yeoman (his 3 x great grandfather in every case) as well as from their maternal aunt.

Can you please explain using names? The first read did not make any sense, the second one maybe, but I'm still not sure. I'm having a bad day so I can't decide if I should understand or not.

You don't have to use real names if you don't want to.

[Nell]

London ancestors seem particularly keen to keep things in the family, I have lots of instances of sets of sisters marrying sets of brothers (and then one of the widowed sisters marrying one of the widowed brothers, just to keep it tidy!).

In villages, the same names crop up all the time - so Mary Brewer marries Mr Eplett and their daughter Honor marries a Mr Brewer and has a daughter called Honor Brewer who marries a Mr Eplett etc etc. I am sure the Brewers in my Cornish tree are all connected but have not been able to sort it out.

I also have in my Warwickshire line a woman whose mother and father were sister and brother to the parents of her husband, so she and her husband were double cousins.

[marquette]

When I discovered that my 5g grandfather who lived in Berkshire had been born in Sparsholt Hampshire, I looked at his siblings and aunts, cousins etc and found a whole lot of names I already had in the tree. There's a whole bunch of tradespeople from around the area, and slightly wider afield, who seemed to "keep it in the family" - cousins, in-laws, step children, round and round.

My 3 great grandparents from Somerset were 2nd cousins once removed, their ancestor being the oldest and youngest daughters of a large family, nearly 20 years age difference. They also had two lots of first cousins who married each other and the same names keep cropping up, so I have this huge tree of inter-related people who are only vaguely related to me really, but when you go up the tree it crosses back over to the other side.