Saturday, March 9, 2013

What are double first cousins?

Double first cousins are the children of siblings from one family who marry siblings from another family.  Their children are double first cousins.  Like siblings, they have the same four grandparents. (In North Carolina, first cousins can marry, but double first cousins cannot marry.)

Since my family lived many generations in a rural county (Wilkes County, N.C.), there were not a lot of choices for mates, so there are several examples of double first cousins.
 
For example, Mary Snyder (1885-1984) married Richard Greene Bumgarner (1890-1976), called "Greene".  They had two children: 
  1. Agnes Hazel Bumgarner (1919-2003) (called "Hazel")
  2. Elva Elizabeth Bumgarner (1921-2009).

Mary's brother, Roby Brown Snyder (1887-1980) married Richard's sister, Maggie Octavie Bumgarner (1892-1963). Roby and Maggie had four children:
  1. Benjamin Franklin Snyder (1913-2003) (called "Ben")
  2. Sadie Belle Snyder (1916-2008)
  3. John Wilson Snyder (1923-2005)
  4. Shade Gordon Snyder (1925-2002) (called "Gordon")
So Hazel and Ben are double-first cousins.

3 comments:

  1. Ny brother married a wonderful woman. Our first cousin married her sister. Not double but close.

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  2. Interesting! So the children of these 2 couples are first cousins on their mother's side (the 2 sisters) and 2nd cousins on their father's side (the first cousins).

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  3. We have a couple of instances of double cousins in our family tree, too. Somewhere along the way, the geneticist for our daughter has determined that my husband and I are cousins, too, but I have yet to find our connecting ancestor (at least not in the last 300 years!)

    I found you through Geneabloggers and am following you via the Feedly Reader. Have a great weekend!

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