Surprising Find!

[Jean Jeanie]

Just had to share this with you all.

My gg grandfather was married twice and his second wife is my gg granny.

I had never bothered tracing the first wife's family as I didn't see the point in doing so! Big mistake!

A contact on the Genes site, through another branch of my family, noticed that I had quite a few relies from Currie Midlothian, where she lives.

So armed with my info she went off on a search of the graveyard. She did this without telling me.

Anyway, she e mailed me a photo of my gggg grandparents headstone. Both had died way before 1841 so I had no info on them at all. Buried with them is a child that's not theirs! (She was born after gggg granny died)So a bit of investigating had to be done and I found out that gggg grandaddy had remarried and produced 3 more children with his second wife. One, buried with him.

To cut a long story short, various BMD's and censuses later I find out that gg grandad's first wife's mother is his mother's sister making them first cousins as well as husband and wife. So I am related to both his wives!

How's that

Best wishes
Jean

[scooter]

Bingo! :D

[LesleyB]

Hi Jean
'mazing what turns up when you least expect it! I love those wee twists and turns of family trees - makes it all the more interesting when you feel like you have uncovered some family info probably long forgotten.

I find out that gg grandad's first wife's mother is his mother's sister making them first cousins as well as husband and wife.

Your turn of phrase reminds me of that funny poem I think it was Marilyn who posted it some time ago where the guy's family are so complex (and a wee bit inbred) that he ends up being his own grandfather, or something similar!!

Best wishes
Lesley

[Jean Jeanie]

Hi Lesley

My relationship calculator says that I am my gg grandad's first wife's

1. 1st cousin 4 times removed

and

2. half 2nd great grandaughter.

Best wishes
Jean

[joette]

My parents are step-brother & sister.We sometimes used to call them Auntie or Uncle as a joke.

[Rach]

These ancestors were a colourful lot!
It is only since I started the family tree that I discovered that it was just as well I spread my wings out of the small village where I was brought up. I didn't realise that so many people were related to me!!
However, escaping to the city didn't work ............ I have now found out that my husband and I share common ancestors some way back. Maybe it was a family resemblance that attracted us to each other.
Rae

[mallog]

Brilliant Jean !!!

It's places I'm finding coincidences with.

You move to some obscure place only to find years later you were probably related to half the village as the ancestors had been there before you

[Jean Jeanie]

Hi Mallog

Before I moved to England I lived in Milton of Camspie, Stirlingshire. A place we chose to live because of it's situation.

As far as I was concerned, before I started on this Genealogy venture, all my folks came from West and Mid Lothian.

Imagine my surprise when tracing one of my lines ...............back to Campsie in 1775

It really is a small world.

Best wishes
Jean

[StewL]

Lesley wrote about Marilyn finding a few inbreds in her line. I know that feeling well. I recently traced one of my mother lines back to the early 1600's and what a nightmare that was at the beginning. Trying to work out who had married whom, and if they were the right lot. Well I ended up in contact with a 5th cousin (yes direct, no times removed) with whom we share 12 identical sets of grandparents. It was she that helped get it straight, well as straight as it possibly could be as no one is actually sure about who married whom, as they really kept it in the family Not that close that it was a worry mind you
But it is amazing what you find in your searches for our lang deid yins.