Tuesday, March 30, 2010

when siblings marry....

Let's say your dad's sibling marries your mom's sibling. Any children from this union share grandparents with you, so they are your cousins. But they share all four grandparents, not unlike your own siblings, so they are closer to you than mere cousins. Cousins such as these, are double cousins, or more precisely, double first cousins. My own great grandfather Carson married a Goodson, whose brother married a Carson--my great grandfather's sister. As a consequences, double cousins run down the line. My papa Carson had double cousins. Their offspring are double second cousins with each other. And so on. Statistically, your double cousins are at least the DNA-equivalent of half-siblings. But depending on which genes are shared, they get closer than that. Imagine identical twins marrying identical twins. I found out on wikipedia that this is called a quaternary union, the second generation of which are indistinguishable from full siblings, DNA-wise.

The Carsons and Goodsons came from North Carolina. I wonder why and how they ended up in Idaho.

I found out that my paternal grandfather was not as German as I thought. Only his dad's family was German, and his mom's family was Dutch and English, it would seem. I am four last names short of my 16 GGGrandparents: Becker, ______, Albright, Richardson, Douglass, Fairbanks, Brook, Parker, Carson, Hodges, Goodson, ________, Ignacio Candido, de Acis Neves, includes Texeira-_______, ________.

I am pretty much done with genealogy for now though. This is my work week, since Bonnie and the kiddos are in Houma for Spring Break. I would be working hard right now, but I had a night of food poisoning last night, so it was a slow morning. I am feeling sturdier now, though, so off I go.

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