Incest is still legal to some extent in 19 US states, where two first cousins can marry. Most of the states fall on the coasts and in the South.
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And my family was horrified that I went out on date with a 4th cousin. They believe cousins have be past 6th cousins for it not to be incest.
How many married people are walking around and are 4th, 5th, or 6th cousins and don’t even know it? Probably quite a few.
I found out doing genealogy research that my parents were 12th cousins. They had common ancestors in the 1400s in Sweden and Denmark. If you go back far enough, everyone is related.
“How many married people are walking around and are 4th, 5th, or 6th cousins and don’t even know it? Probably quite a few.”
I have over 30,000 relatives according to Ancestry.com. I don’t really bother checking on anyone past being a 3 to DNA cousin.
A first cousin recently died, and he had documented over 40,000 DNA relatives. One of his older fraternal female cousins refused to submit to a DNA test. She bluntly said that the DNA that attracted her parents to each other, had a similar effect on their off spring, 3 and 4th cousins. So, she refused to submit her DNA and she advised her children to say No.