So, there was a recent article in the Economist: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/02/15/cousin-marriage-is-probably-fine-in-most-cases It’s subscription only so I haven’t actually read the article. And for reasons of a typo (corrected) the subject came up in the comments section of one of the chapters of the (now up to five books) serialized story that’s for paid subscribers.
I are a redneck - Jeff Foxworthy’s phrasing- and I like to tell people when it comes up in conversation that my maternal grandparents were brother and sister. My grandparents had been married a few years when my grandmother’s dad died. The next year my grandfather’s mom died. About a year after that the widower Hattaway and widow Cheely were married. Thus making my grandparents step siblings. I usually don’t explain it and just let people wonder.
My mom's best friend married her first cousin. They all grew up in: NYC. This was in the 50's and they (her best friend and their 1st cousin) had to move to Ohio, because marrying 1st cousins was legal there (it isn't in NY).
I heard so many stories about 'red necks' from folks up north when I was stationed in Mississippi. I heard so many of them every time I was sent into the deep south for work stuff. I still hear them now (and I live in Texas these days). I have -never- met these 'red necks' people keep talking about. Instead I've met a lot of folks who I liked and got on well with.
"We have hundreds of years of false mythology about what certain cultures are ‘like.’ Things that we know are the way and the truth and the light. And how many of them are so much bullshit?"
Simple. The "educated" city dwellers have to have people to look down on to justify their own horrid existence. I mean we hicks, hay seeds, rednecks, hillbillies, bumpkins, provincials, yokels, and rubes, must be inbreed, stupid, ignorant, or just dumb, otherwise we'd live in the cities. It must be a mental defect that resulting from inbreeding. How else can we be able to enjoy having a cup of coffee on the porch watching the sun rise, doing nothing? Or just be fascinated by the sound of the wind move through the trees? Or not stare at a cell phone? How do we live not documenting our entire lives on the internets, and vidtubes? Or enjoy the taste of venison stew cooked with vegetables from our own garden? Or enjoy being forced to watch a wood feed fire heat our home? Or suffer the the nightmare of having to use a horse to get around the giant empty plots of nature devoid of other human life? Or birdsong? Or frogs all stop singing as the storm approaches on a summer evening? Or the sorrowful song of those crickets calling out for love before the first snow? Yes those who live in the country must be fools.
For only a fool would live such a life when they can move to the BIG CITY!! The pinnacle of human culture. Where you live along side thousands of people every day, and don't know any of them. Where something is always happening, like crime. Where its never quiet, traffic screams out human existence 24/7. Where every modern entertainment is at your fingertips, and you work to death to afford it. Where you never have to deal with wildlife, except rats, and roaches. Where you never get grass stains on your clothes, unless you make a trip across town to the park.
I know people whose lottery plan is a condo in Vegas, or LA, or NYC. When I fantasize about winning the lottery there a plot of land on Zillow I look at. Its jut outside of Colorado Springs. 70 acres on a mountain. The only reason I don't dream of 1,000 acres in wilds of Montana, is I need to be close to a hospital. I want Elk, Deer, and wildlife in my yard. I want to be woken at night by a coyote howling for his pack. Or wolves prowling the edge of my yard. At 8:00 am I want to have to say, "I'm headed in to town. Back after dark." I want directions to my house to be "go five miles, then turn off the paved road." I want to not go anywhere cause there's 4 foot of snow on the ground, my pantry is full, my woodstore is full, and my library is well stocked. I want to live in the back o' beyond, the boondocks, the hinterland, and BFE. I want to look out my window, and not see any sign of another living human soul.
I guess I must be the stupidest, rednecked, uneducated, hick, hayseed, inbreed, Southern boy, in the entire Midwestern US.
Here in South Australia, first cousin marriage was banned just before WW2, to break up the Kidman land empire, not because it was seen as "culturally disgusting". Naturally the Kidmans, who had been "keeping it (the land) in the family" through intra-marriage, restructured holdings to get around this new restriction, because petty politicians don't get to dictate terms....
To give an idea as to the amount of land involved, a herd of cattle could be driven North to South (or vice versa..) across the WHOLE CONTINENT of Australia *without* leaving Kidman land....
Just the holdings in South Australia were *bigger* than Texas.... *all* of it...
Oh, and my Grandmothers were cousins, so I be some kind of Southron redneck...😁
Moved to Utah in 1972, and the county was...remote. A trip to Idaho was considered world travel, and many hadn't made it that far. Everyone seemed to be everyone else's 5th cousin, at least. The best thing being when coal fired power plants were built, and workers came from all over the country to work those union jobs for about 3 years or so. Brought, literally, new blood to the area. The social upheaval wasn't welcome, but it was needed. It also brought a better tax base, so services were more plentiful. Hell, we even got a stop light in town. Then, plants were built, and over a single weekend, when it was discovered a 4th section of the plants weren't going in, poof. 28% unemployment in 3 days. And people moved out. So again, the genetic pool was swirled around. There are advantages to being insular, but a good shakeup is healthier in many ways.
Born and raised in down town Philly. Moved to an Appalachian county in central Pennsylvania at age 32. Worked first as a sheriff's deputy, then in CPS. I can tell you the stereotypes are BS. Great place to live. Crime rate is near zero. Haven't had a homocide in more than a decade. School district is well within the top quintile. People in the urban bubble haven't a clue. Hope they stay there.
It's one of those things that irritate me so much - my Dad was born and raised in WV.
Thankfully, Ancestry and 23&Me have corrected that mistaken concept.
Yes, several people with the same name did marry one another at different times. However, they were considerably distant relations - less closely related than FDR and Eleanor.
It's just that the Founder stock in this country was so prolific - the son of my first ancestor emigrating to the colonies (not yet the USA in the 1600s) had a verified 19 children. 3 different mothers:
- First one a member of the tribe that kidnapped him from his family and kept him for many years - 6 kids, he, and their mother were released by the treaty that ended Pontiac's War (I saw a copy of the original paperwork on Ancestry - gave me a thrill). She returned to her people, with the kids, leaving him free to marry.
- Second mother - my direct ancestor - 6 kids. She died, and then Indian Billy Ice remarried.
- Third mother - I believe she outlived him - 7 kids.
And there are many, many more in my family line.
So, although the names recur, the connection is quite diluted.
One notes that Queen Victoria married her first cousin, as did Emperor Franz Joseph (have to admit the Habsburgs went a bit overboard in that respect over the generations, though), as did Albert Einstein (his second marriage). Also, wasn't one of the first more-or-less scientific studies of the prolonged effects of inbreeding done on a family in upstate New York, the Jukeses?
I are a redneck - Jeff Foxworthy’s phrasing- and I like to tell people when it comes up in conversation that my maternal grandparents were brother and sister. My grandparents had been married a few years when my grandmother’s dad died. The next year my grandfather’s mom died. About a year after that the widower Hattaway and widow Cheely were married. Thus making my grandparents step siblings. I usually don’t explain it and just let people wonder.
My mom's best friend married her first cousin. They all grew up in: NYC. This was in the 50's and they (her best friend and their 1st cousin) had to move to Ohio, because marrying 1st cousins was legal there (it isn't in NY).
I heard so many stories about 'red necks' from folks up north when I was stationed in Mississippi. I heard so many of them every time I was sent into the deep south for work stuff. I still hear them now (and I live in Texas these days). I have -never- met these 'red necks' people keep talking about. Instead I've met a lot of folks who I liked and got on well with.
Now Gaza on the other hand is extremely inbred according to actual recent studies.
"We have hundreds of years of false mythology about what certain cultures are ‘like.’ Things that we know are the way and the truth and the light. And how many of them are so much bullshit?"
Simple. The "educated" city dwellers have to have people to look down on to justify their own horrid existence. I mean we hicks, hay seeds, rednecks, hillbillies, bumpkins, provincials, yokels, and rubes, must be inbreed, stupid, ignorant, or just dumb, otherwise we'd live in the cities. It must be a mental defect that resulting from inbreeding. How else can we be able to enjoy having a cup of coffee on the porch watching the sun rise, doing nothing? Or just be fascinated by the sound of the wind move through the trees? Or not stare at a cell phone? How do we live not documenting our entire lives on the internets, and vidtubes? Or enjoy the taste of venison stew cooked with vegetables from our own garden? Or enjoy being forced to watch a wood feed fire heat our home? Or suffer the the nightmare of having to use a horse to get around the giant empty plots of nature devoid of other human life? Or birdsong? Or frogs all stop singing as the storm approaches on a summer evening? Or the sorrowful song of those crickets calling out for love before the first snow? Yes those who live in the country must be fools.
For only a fool would live such a life when they can move to the BIG CITY!! The pinnacle of human culture. Where you live along side thousands of people every day, and don't know any of them. Where something is always happening, like crime. Where its never quiet, traffic screams out human existence 24/7. Where every modern entertainment is at your fingertips, and you work to death to afford it. Where you never have to deal with wildlife, except rats, and roaches. Where you never get grass stains on your clothes, unless you make a trip across town to the park.
I know people whose lottery plan is a condo in Vegas, or LA, or NYC. When I fantasize about winning the lottery there a plot of land on Zillow I look at. Its jut outside of Colorado Springs. 70 acres on a mountain. The only reason I don't dream of 1,000 acres in wilds of Montana, is I need to be close to a hospital. I want Elk, Deer, and wildlife in my yard. I want to be woken at night by a coyote howling for his pack. Or wolves prowling the edge of my yard. At 8:00 am I want to have to say, "I'm headed in to town. Back after dark." I want directions to my house to be "go five miles, then turn off the paved road." I want to not go anywhere cause there's 4 foot of snow on the ground, my pantry is full, my woodstore is full, and my library is well stocked. I want to live in the back o' beyond, the boondocks, the hinterland, and BFE. I want to look out my window, and not see any sign of another living human soul.
I guess I must be the stupidest, rednecked, uneducated, hick, hayseed, inbreed, Southern boy, in the entire Midwestern US.
Gotta love the "Great Society" The domestic version of " we had to destroy the village in order to save it."
Here in South Australia, first cousin marriage was banned just before WW2, to break up the Kidman land empire, not because it was seen as "culturally disgusting". Naturally the Kidmans, who had been "keeping it (the land) in the family" through intra-marriage, restructured holdings to get around this new restriction, because petty politicians don't get to dictate terms....
To give an idea as to the amount of land involved, a herd of cattle could be driven North to South (or vice versa..) across the WHOLE CONTINENT of Australia *without* leaving Kidman land....
Just the holdings in South Australia were *bigger* than Texas.... *all* of it...
Oh, and my Grandmothers were cousins, so I be some kind of Southron redneck...😁
Moved to Utah in 1972, and the county was...remote. A trip to Idaho was considered world travel, and many hadn't made it that far. Everyone seemed to be everyone else's 5th cousin, at least. The best thing being when coal fired power plants were built, and workers came from all over the country to work those union jobs for about 3 years or so. Brought, literally, new blood to the area. The social upheaval wasn't welcome, but it was needed. It also brought a better tax base, so services were more plentiful. Hell, we even got a stop light in town. Then, plants were built, and over a single weekend, when it was discovered a 4th section of the plants weren't going in, poof. 28% unemployment in 3 days. And people moved out. So again, the genetic pool was swirled around. There are advantages to being insular, but a good shakeup is healthier in many ways.
John-- I did a cut-and-paste of the article to your Messenger account.
Highest would be upper class Northeastern, yes?
Born and raised in down town Philly. Moved to an Appalachian county in central Pennsylvania at age 32. Worked first as a sheriff's deputy, then in CPS. I can tell you the stereotypes are BS. Great place to live. Crime rate is near zero. Haven't had a homocide in more than a decade. School district is well within the top quintile. People in the urban bubble haven't a clue. Hope they stay there.
There’s more incest in the “noble” families.
In response to "take a guess" where incest is most common.
Going out on a limb here and guessing that nowadays it's not a rural or suburban phenomenon.
Oh wait, I knew, it’s Vermont communes
It's one of those things that irritate me so much - my Dad was born and raised in WV.
Thankfully, Ancestry and 23&Me have corrected that mistaken concept.
Yes, several people with the same name did marry one another at different times. However, they were considerably distant relations - less closely related than FDR and Eleanor.
It's just that the Founder stock in this country was so prolific - the son of my first ancestor emigrating to the colonies (not yet the USA in the 1600s) had a verified 19 children. 3 different mothers:
- First one a member of the tribe that kidnapped him from his family and kept him for many years - 6 kids, he, and their mother were released by the treaty that ended Pontiac's War (I saw a copy of the original paperwork on Ancestry - gave me a thrill). She returned to her people, with the kids, leaving him free to marry.
- Second mother - my direct ancestor - 6 kids. She died, and then Indian Billy Ice remarried.
- Third mother - I believe she outlived him - 7 kids.
And there are many, many more in my family line.
So, although the names recur, the connection is quite diluted.
I don’t care what anyone says. There was this first cousin. . . and I would have run away with her. Didn’t, of course. Wanted to. LoL
One notes that Queen Victoria married her first cousin, as did Emperor Franz Joseph (have to admit the Habsburgs went a bit overboard in that respect over the generations, though), as did Albert Einstein (his second marriage). Also, wasn't one of the first more-or-less scientific studies of the prolonged effects of inbreeding done on a family in upstate New York, the Jukeses?