OK,
I know that does not seem all that exciting. After all, these people lived over
200 years ago so how important can it be?
Two of my 4X great-grandparents, John Shepheard (1768-1845) and
Jane Treby Shepheard (1769-1851), were first cousins who married each other (29 July 1791).
Their fathers were brothers so that chopped the number of my 5X
great-grandparents by 2, my 6X great-grandparents by 4, my 7X
great-grandparents by 8, and so on. This example is not terribly surprising as
there are cases in almost every family where cousins marry, shortening the
overall family tree. It is just more obvious when they share the same surname.
I have found one other case in my family in the same area although it does not
deal with people in my direct line.
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| Marriage record for John Shepheard and Jane Treby Shepheard, Cornwood parish, Devon |
In
a recent blog post, James Tanner
refers to this situation as pedigree collapse. He goes on to say, “[i]n families that come from a rather
limited geographic area, it is entirely possible that everyone in the entire
area is somehow related and that shared pedigrees are the rule rather than the
exception.” What is surprising in the case of my family is that these
great-grandparents did come from quite a small parish, Cornwood, in southwest
Devon, England but I have found, so far, few examples of cousins marrying in
any family. Mind you, while I have transcribed every baptism, marriage and
burial in the parish registers back to 1685, I have not done a full analysis of
all of the families who lived there. Perhaps there are more examples in the
area than I think there are. As far as I can determine, in my direct family
line this is the only example of cousins marrying.
What
must have been interesting back in the late 18th century in this
family is that the children of John and Jane had two fewer great-grandparents
which really changed their ancestral line. I am sure it did not matter to these
children since all of the great-grandparents were dead before either of them were
born.
The
children of John and Jane, though, including my 3X great-grandfather, John
Shepheard (1792-1870), only had 96 5X great-grandparents, when they normally
might have had 128 (25% fewer). The pedigree collapse seems more real when
considering these individuals. Do you suppose they talked about their
grandfathers being brothers or did they really care at that stage of their
lives? Over time, generations can make up ground and the collapse does not appear
to be all that great. In my case the difference at the 5X great-grandparent
stages is only two people, or 1.56%. It’s hard to get your head around that
many grandparents of a generation that far back.
It
is interesting when you find close relatives marrying – I consider first cousins pretty
close. You have to think, in a small parish like Cornwood they knew
each other very well growing up, probably went to school together, attended
church with their families together and generally socialized so it was, in the
end, just natural that an attraction would develop. John and Jane were married
for 54 years until his death in 1845. They lived the entire time within a mile or so
of where they had been born and very near most of their children and
grandchildren. It must have been quite a love story.
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| Gravestone for John and Jane Treby Shepheard, Cornwood, Devon |
