To care that my children’s great grandparents were first cousins?

[Antipoodean]

Not particularly unusual perhaps, but I come from a very diverse gene pool myself (different hemispheres). I only learnt that my MIL’s parents were first cousins after we had children. Would this bother you? My dcs are healthy and I am not worried about them, I’d have had them
with the knowledge, it’s just a bit disconcerting.

TV presenter Sarah Beeney is married to Graham.
Graham has a sister, who is married to Sarah's brother.
Both couples have children. Those children are what is called double cousins .
I find that really strange.

It's unusual now outside of specific communities (in some Muslim communities especially of Pakistani origin it's more common but it's discouraged by health professionals due to high rates of birth defects in those communities) but was more common especially in land owning families

Yes I'd find it a bit icky having a relationship with a first cousin, but with your inlaws it's in the past, may have been more common in their generation and culture, and it seems no harm has come of it. I think it's just need to accept it happened.

My late mother’s extensive genealogy research shows most of our family lived in small villages in relative poverty but they all managed not to marry cousins, eventually moving to London to find jobs and probably move away from all the inbred weirdos 🤣😂🤣

Because I'm guessing a fair few people who say it's no big deal might start to find it a big deal if their daughter started having a sexual relationship with her male cousin...

My grandmother was one of ten, my grandfather one of 12. With families that size, you aren't as close to cousins etc. My father thinks he has about 50 cousins. It could be more....

Why would this bother you?

Come to throw another grenade in the mix, I am currently in a relationship with my second cousin which has been controversial to a few people, we mostly don't tell people.

We never met as kids and were in the same school as teenagers so met through school though I was aware he was my mum's cousins son I didn't see him as family because I had never met any of that part of the family. We had a brief thing when we were teens and reconnected 2 years ago and have been a couple since.

It is weird when we go and visit his Grandad because he likes to talk about how he and my Grandad were brothers, my Grandad has been dead for 15 years now. Unfortunately my BF's Dad died of cancer when he was a teenager so my Mum and him never had that awkward moment but I can imagine it would have been a bit weird for them.

All I can say is you can't help who you fall in love with and I've never been in a relationship as good as ours is, we just clicked immediately in everyway.

As long as it's legal and he makes her happy who she is with is none of my business.

I know - it was a humorous reply to a PP’s response to my question.

I wanted to know if PP’s had any feelings about any of their own kids marrying cousins if they didn’t have any feelings about prior generations doing it. She said she wasn’t sure how to answer esp as in her family they’re all boys.
it was a playful remark back to that.

Been an interesting topic though.

My grandparents were first cousins. I have always known so never found it ick. I am always a bit surprised when people do but suppose if you are very close to your cousins growing up it might seem a bit weird. Not all families are like that though.

If you go back through most people's family trees there are likely to be first and second cousin marriages - particularly before migration to cities and access to a wider variety of spousal options.

According to Wikipedia 10% of current worldwide marriages are between cousins.

In the UK its dropped from 5% in the 19th century to less than 1 in 25,000

In other parts of the world its as high as 66% of all current marriages.

Thats absolutely minging. I don't care if its legal. Sharing grandchildren with siblings is a result of incest.

But their experience won't be everyone's experience, will it?🙄

Not everyone will have been fortunate enough to be able to move to a city and find work and a partner. Many people will have stayed in the same village all their lives - mainly due to poverty or the expectation that you stayed and took over the family farm or business.

Not sure what's apparently so hilarious about that 🤔

Wait your great grandparents children married each other? Isn't that siblings marrying?

I once heard a radio 4 programme about the rise of genetic conditions in the UK Pakistani community, mainly, I think, because of marriages between first cousins which had started to narrow the gene pool, so for example, a first cousins getting married and both sets of their parents were also first cousins etc.

As usual on mumsnet some posters who have a close family and see thier cousins regularly seem incapable of understanding that some people may have lots of cousins whom they have never even met

Plus posters who think that inbreeding to the scale of the hapsburgs is the the same scenario as one first cousin marriage three or four generations ago.

I have approx. 50 first cousins a few of whom I've never met. Still repulsed at the idea of having sex with them.

As usual on mumsnet some posters who have a close family and see thier cousins regularly seem incapable of understanding that some people may have lots of cousins whom they have never even met

I have plenty of cousins I've never met - I still wouldn't want to have children with any of them!

I have around 35 first cousins on my dad's side. Unfortunately, my dad and his many siblings were separated during the second world war and due to the death of his mother, were not reunited until many, many years later, some never were. It would have been entirely possible that I could have got together with a cousin and, if they were children if one of his sisters, I would have been unaware.
I can easily see how sone families are not close, or like me, don't know their cousins at all, so this could happen.

I’m not really getting the haven’t met them= doesn’t make it incest. I’ve 2 siblings I’ve never met, I don’t even know their names or where they live… it would still be absolutely repulsive to me if I had sex with them. Just to add there is very little chance of that ever having happened, I moved to the other side of the world when I was 18.

I do think there's a difference between choosing to marry your cousin, and having such a big family that it happened without realising, though.

Op can no small part of you comprehend that nearly a century ago this was quite common, cars didn’t exist, people didn’t travel, it was not seen as wrong. That today the world is different? However it’s still legal today and actually very common in some cultures.

is there no part of you that can comprehend it didn’t happen today, it happened nearly a century ago and the world was different then?

it feels like you can’t.

No: why would I? They aren’t siblings. I know plenty of people who married the ‘boy next door’ they were raised with abs no one thinks that’s ‘ick’ so why is that different just because they happen to share a grandparent? It makes no sense logically.

I agree it’s a bit ick but what’s done is done so no use thinking too much about it