Cousins Germane

[maddymoss]

I came across an 1872 marriage where the couple were recorded as ‘Cousins Germane’. The bride and groom and both set of parents, (mothers’ maiden names too), shared the same surname.
Does anyone have any idea how common this kind of marriage was?

Jim

[Ina]

Hi Jim,

I have an 1881 marriage record which states that the couple are second cousins, when in fact they are actualy first cousins. The grooms father and the brides mother are brother and sister.

Ina

[LesleyB]

Hi Jim
Cousin Germane/German is just what we would call cousin these days: that is the child of a brother or sister of your parent.

Not sure how common it was to marry a cousin, but it certianly happened sometimes. I have a couple of such marriage in my tree. The following is about the best I could do on finding statistics :

From 626 ascendant genealogies, known as ‘birth briefs’, deposited by members of the Society of Genealogists in their London library, rates of consanguineous marriage and coefficients of mean inbreeding ([alpha]) of offspring were estimated for cohorts of marriages contracted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The rate of first cousin marriage in the generation estimated to have married during the 1920s was 0·32%, with no marriages between second cousins. The mean inbreeding coefficient for the offspring of these marriages was estimated as 0·0002. In the previous generation 1·12% of the marriages were between first cousins, and the estimate of mean inbreeding was 0·0007. Comparison with data taken from the published literature suggests that the levels of cousin marriage observed are consistent with a secular decline during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/di ... &aid=63487
Best wishes
Lesley

[SarahND]

The percentage of cousin marriages goes steeply up when you are dealing with the aristocracy. At least in Europe it was such a closed society that if you married someone from the "right sort of family" chances are you were related to them. I have done some research involving aristocratic families in France and Belgium and the amount of inbreeding is scary
Regards,
Sarah

[trish1]

The percentage also appears to have gone up steeply with my ancestors when they came from a small village - I don't think they met anyone else. I have a number of such marriages in the early 19th century - perhaps it was as well some of them emigrated and met some new folks.

Trish

[DavidWW]

This is one of the fallacies in the "We're all descended from King Tut" argument, in that his descendants can't be calculated simply on the basis of every line leading to so many kids, leading to more ......... so that his descendants end up numbering in the billions, so we must all be descended from his, mustn't we ?

David
PS NB I've no idea if King Tut had any descendants !!

[HeatherH]

Hello and happy new year to all . David King Tut did indeed have children . The coffins of his 2 daughters were found both having died after premature births .1 showing signs of deformaties that would be expected from incestuous marriages .As his wife is believed to be his half sister this makes sense .No living children existed so his throne was passed on to his regents .
You can see I spent some of my free time watching the Discovery Channel over the holidays .
All the best,
HeatherH

[LesleyB]

Fascinating stuff Heather
...could not resist a Google on that one!
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tutchildren.htm

Best wishes
Lesley