Double Cousins?

Anyone else out there double cousins? Are you closer to them than your other cousins? [name_f]Do[/name_f] people always think it’s odd when you try to explain it? I get pretty weird looks at first when I say “[name_f]My[/name_f] mom and her mom are sisters, and my dad and her dad are brothers.” But people understand it better when I say, “imagine you and your sisters married brothers.”

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I’m not a double cousin, but I have a few in my extended family that I know of! Sometimes people are weird about it, and I don’t know why. It’s just not that weird! I think it’s pretty cool actually.

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Not me, but my in my grandmother’s family 3 brothers married 3 sisters! Small town, I guess!

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Two of my sisters married brothers. It’s nice that they spend most holidays together, unlike the rest of us who divide them between our parents and our in-laws. I imagine that because of this, their children will be closer, but who knows?

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That happened in my family too!

This isn’t a concept that I’ve ever encountered in real life, but the thought of my sister and my brother-in-law together has given me a good laugh! :joy:

Somewhere in my extended family there was a set of three sisters and a set of four brothers…one brother didn’t get picked, but the rest all got married! I think that’s the funniest thing, but it probably wasn’t for the unlucky brother.

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@NameLover2020 that’s awesome! That would be an interesting family tree

This used to happen A LOT in the 1800s and early 1900s. I think because people didn’t travel they way we do now. Most people lived their whole lives in their little town.

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Not me personally but my cousins are ‘double’ cousins my aunts and uncles are brothers and sisters, I would say they hung out together a little more than the rest of us but it was never weird

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I never knew there was a name for this. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband’s mom and her sister married brothers. So I guess my husband and his siblings and their cousins are “double cousins”, although they don’t make that distinction where they are from.

I’ve never thought of this before! How interesting. For a short while my Uncle on my father’s side was dating my cousin on my mother’s side. No blood relation, but it was strange to think of my uncle dating my cousin. :thinking:

Two of my dad’s brothers married a pair of sisters, one couple had three children together and the other couple had five. The eight “kids” (my cousins, all adults now with their own families) are fairly close, especially the sisters, but I wouldn’t say they’re necessarily closer to each other than to our other cousins that are around their age.

To add an extra fun complicating variable into the mix, one of my dad’s brothers divorced, remarried (not to another sister) and had 3 more children. So his “first set” of children are more closely biologically related to their double-cousins than their half siblings!

Family trees are fun.

(Yes, basically everyone on that side of the family has a lot of kids— three children or more. I’m in one of the “smaller” immediate families as one of my dad’s three. My cousin just welcomed her fifth. With that many people in a city that’s honestly not that big, double cousins happening was almost an inevitability.)

My great-grandfather had about 30-40 double first cousins. Very hard to tell them apart in photos.

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