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I'm just curious if it was a normal occurrence for families to marry into families they are technically already in? You don't hear about it much these days. Was it more common back then in the 1700s sort of times?

I noticed in my tree that a Miss Langtry married a Mr Witt and then one of their grandchild, a Mr Witt also married a Miss Langtry, from the same family.

And would this have been common (if it was) because of smaller villages/towns and you pretty much grew up and only knew those in your area.

One line of my ancestors came from a small village in Derbyshire and it was traditional for people to marry someone else from the same village - thus keeping outsiders out!!

Almost everyone was related to everyone else and I have so many cousins marrying that keeping track is very difficult. Not helped by the fact that they all used the same first names!! :-S :-S

This, I think, is also the origin of the term "village idiot" which is the last column on several of the censuses, because so many children were born with mental problems, as a result of the in-breeding.

Natasha .............

it was very common, both in the villages and among the wealthier folk.

and, yes, as Andysmum said, it probably was the origin of the term "village idiot".

There are now proscribed relationships within which people are not allowed to marry ........ but that was not always the case.

Many of us have found cases of men marrying the sister of their deceased wife, which is not now allowed.

Grandchild marrying grandchild means second cousins marrying ..............

Forbidden marriage laws of the UK

http://www.genetic-genealogy.co.uk/Toc115570145.html

and from Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibited_degree_of_kinship

It certainly happened in my family, especially with early, middle class farmers in Lanarkshire.

Whenever a young married woman died, her widower invariably remarried another female from the same family.
I'm convinced that these marriages were arranged/engineered as children born to each marriage were more genetically linked than other, regular half siblings

In one case, 2 sisters married 2 brothers.yet their offspring married each other !

This union does of course mean that both bride and groom shared both sets of grandparents.

I married back into family though at the time of meeting we had no idea of the connection - not that far apart, but far enough not to matter

Sylvia - I take issue with most of your post.

I can't imagine it would ever be OK for me to marry my mother, sister or daughter.

I had heard in the early middle ages, it was prohibited to marry if you had a common ancestor in the previous 7 generations, but I think this was just invented by the church so they could sell dispensations. Royal families with influence could also get the pope to overturn the dispensation, and thus get an annulment.

"Many of us have found cases of men marrying the sister of their deceased wife, which is not now allowed."
You've got this completely backward - it has been permitted since:
Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Act, 1907
Deceased Brother’s Widow’s Marriage Act, 1921
[The following applies to both sexes, but from my viewpoint, brother includes half-brother, and I can't marry my brother's divorced ex-wife until my brother is dead]

Henry VIII wed his dead brother's wife, Catherine of Aragon, after getting a papal dispensation. When it suited him, he said the pope didn't have the right to issue such a dispensation. This disagreement over whether the pope could legitimize an illegal act is the basis of the split between the RCs and C of E.

My grandad's grandchild is my first cousin (or my sibling or me).

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In the UK for the last 100y, abt 2-4% of marrs are between 1st cousins.

Well, it's NOT violating legislation/law to marry your deceased wife' sister in the UK

Not sure about anywhere else in the world?

mgnv ...............

you posted .................

Sylvia - I take issue with most of your post.

"I can't imagine it would ever be OK for me to marry my mother, sister or daughter."
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I never ever said that! I don't know how you got the impression that I said that anyone had ever been permitted to marry mother, sister, daughter, or father, brother, son ................

that has always been prohibited, although it has occurred ............ and still occurs today as we may all have read.


Yes, I did get the marrying your wife's sister the wrong way round ........ but, again, it did happen quite frequently in the days before it did become permitted in 1907

I've found evidence of it happening in several families when looking up ancestors for members on this site and on others ................. as well as common-law situations where wife's sister moved in to help her brother-in-law after wife had died, and then proceeded to have several children herself apparently fathered by her brother-in-law.

The marriages often happened in a church ........ and mainly took place in the 19th century, although I did find one Parish Register record in the 18th century where a man married 2 wives several years apart who had the same father.

Expediency probably, and closing of the eyes by the parish priest???

This happened all the time.For example, I have page in the 1861 census where 4 different families with different surnames are listed, yet all related to each other. The tangle of cousins aunts uncles etc is a real web.

One of my wifes aunts has 2 great grandmothers who are sisters, so she is could be her own second cousin(if that makes sense)

Andy

There is a family near me where the niece is older than her uncle. please explain how this can happen. Thank You

well, the easy thing to say is that the uncle had older or much older siblings who married and had children before he was born!

In a large family that is not impossible!

One of OH's ancestral families had 20 children between about 1832 and 1868 ..............

the second eldest, a daughter, was born in 1833, married the earliest (in 1853), and had her first child in 1853. 5 of her youngest siblings were born after that 1853 baby, so it would have been older than 5 of its aunts and uncles!


Alternatively, the uncle might be the child of a second marriage.

My father had at least one uncle and aunt younger than him for exactly the reason that Sylvia said. Dad's mother was his grandmother's eldest child and gave birth to my father at the age of 20/21. Grandmother went on having children for 25 years or more so had a couple after my father was born.

I also have an instance of a chap marrying his deceased wife's sister, Margaret. The marriage took place in church and I have seen the marriage certificate, which stated he was widowed. My brother and I in our researches found his first wife but were very puzzled when we saw his will as it referred to Margaret B.(her maiden name), spinster, also known as Margaret A. (his name). It looked as though they weren't married but we had seen the certificate . :-S

It was only when we managed to find his grave, luckily with a properly engraved stone alter tomb, that it became clear. Between wife no. 1 and Margaret, there was another wife and he was buried with all three but only two were called wives, because wife no. 2 was Margaret's sister.

Sometime between her wedding in church and his will being drawn up, poor Margaret found her marriage wasn't valid. :-(