1.
The most recent occurrence was when the McCutchen and Richmond line came
together on 9 November 1887. This is when Andrew McCutchen married
Sarah Agnes Richmond. They were first cousins.
Andrew and Sarah are my 2nd great grandparents. To make
things more complicated, this marriage causes both of them to be my 1st
cousin 4 times removed also.
Andrew's mother Susan Jane Richmond was the sister of
Sarah's father Henry Samuel Richmond. This means Andrew and Sarah had a set of
grandparents in common. They were William Richmond and Margaret
Ferguson.
Near as I can figure is that they were getting up there in
years (he was 28 and she was 23) and no one else was available to marry.
I suppose the issue of first cousins marrying each other was thought of
differently back then.
So what does this fact mean to me? Mostly it
means I have been shorted one set of 4th-great grandparents. I should
have 32 sets, but alas I only have 31 sets of 4th-great grandparents. Of
course it does mean a little less searching for ancestors.
2.
There is a rather interesting occurrence of second cousins marrying on
16 September 1732 in New Jersey. They actually shared the same last name
of Demarest. Samuel Demaree (b. 1707, He changed the spelling of his
last name. He was a Demarest.) married Leah Demarest.
They were actually second cousins twice. Samuel and Leah
had two sets of great grandparents in common. They were David desMarets
wife Marie Sohier and Simon deRuine wife Magdalena van der Straaten. Two
sons of David and Marie married two daughters of Simon and Magdalena. It
was their grand children Samuel and Leah who married. Are you confused
yet?
So basically, Samuel and Leah are 6-great grandparents to
me. And in a weird twist of family relations, they are also technically
my 2nd cousins 8 times removed twice! This is due to them sharing the
same great grandparents. It is truly tangled.
3.
Adrienne Curellier is my 10th great grandmother. She had two different
husbands that contributed to this tangled connection.
Dennis Bice married Annie Sebring on 26 November
1765. Dennis and Annie are technically one half-4th cousins. They shared
a 3rd great grandmother named Adrienne Curellier.
Dennis and Annie are my 5th great grandparents. And the
really twisted connection I have to Dennis and Annie in terms of being
cousins to them means that they are my one half-4th cousin 7 times
removed. Can anyone really follow that connection? Dennis and Annie may
not even have been aware that they shared a 3rd great grandmother.
4.
I haven't totally gotten this one sorted out yet but here is what I
have. Henry Crafton married Susanna Bates 20 Dec 1845 in
Trimble County, Kentucky. These two are first cousins. Henry's mother,
Elizabeth Bates, and Susanna's father, Abner Bates, are brother and
sister.
This means that they shared David
and Susannah Hood as grandparents. Henry and Susanna Crafton are my
3great grandparents. And the twisted connection is of them being my 1st
cousins 5 times removed.
What makes this connection even more twisted is that Henry
is obviously a Crafton and Susanna's mother was a Crafton. I don't have
all this sorted out but I believe her mother Mary Crafton was a first
cousin to his father Elisha Crafton. The other possibility is that Mary
and Elisha are second cousins. The Craftons, Bates', Hoods, Staples',
Ellis', and Awbreys all lived in Lunenburg County, Virginia. The
families married each other tremendously. And it seems everyone had a
child named Mary, Richard, Sarah, Elizabeth, David, and Abner. It gets
really confusing. And to help matters, many of the families picked up and
moved to Trimble County, Kentucky and continued to marry their cousins.
