Cousins Marrying Cousins? Don't Duplicate People in Your Family Tree | Ancestry 

I wish ancestry would add an automatic notification, hint or something if you add someone to your tree that has a similar name and vital data, instead of manually checking to see if you already have the person. It would make things a lot easier and convenient.

OMG, Cousins marrying cousins; a common occurrence (some of my relatives, too, Crista, are from the deep rural south.) ! I originally suspected that my 4th great aunt, whose maiden name was the same as her husband's surname, was a mistake. This same pattern happened, few times with other ancestors in my tree. I then realized my ancestors were marrying their cousins, and the issue of having the same maiden name and surname, was not a mistake.

Thanks, Crista!! You've given us more helpful information!! I looked forward to these training videos you do!

This is really helpful. I'm running into a lot of this around 1500-1600 in Norway. Small village, not a lot of people.

You did a great job telling of a complicated subject matter and made it easy to follow along. Great video. Greetings from Atlantic City New Jersey USA

Not just cousins. Some examples I have are where a wife or husband dies. The living spouse marries the sister or brother or the dead spouse. Half Siblings also cousins. Lol

My parents married in 1939 despite the fact that their mothers were sisters. They always claimed that 'lots of cousins married'. My sister suffered from macular degeneration as a child and I have multiple health problems.

Thank you for having these communications/advise/hints.. I am so thankful for these....

Christine - This most often happens when you attach census records and, instead of clicking the "this person is already in my tree" button, you attach the record and it creates duplicates of those children. Keep an eye on that next time you attach a census record. (Crista)

Yes, I found 2 brothers Anthony and John married, they had many children with their wives, the cousins married each other, also, when one brother passed, the wife would marry the other brother, also, many would marry 2 to 3 times in their life time, this was back in the 1600’s on my Grandmothers side. Great video!

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THESE VIDEOS THEY ARE CONFUSING YET A BIT INFORMATIVE

I've got cousins marrying cousins as well. But can I say that I'm glad that someone else also "speaks" with their hands!! Thanks again. Love learning more about Ancestry!!

Have a single (bloodline) tree. Received myDNA results and I have a 7 person match. We share 3 sets of grandparents. Thank you Arkansas 😂

I have a couple of instances where a brother married his brother's widow and sometimes had children. Also, there is at least one instance where a man or woman is listed as a step or adoptive parent and then the "missing" parent ends up with a grown child in their elder years.

I do a lot of descendancy research, too. I sometimes say that I don't have a family tree. I have a family briar patch! Just going through obits in one small area near where I live, I can count on being related to roughly about 1/3 or more of those listed.It isn't unusual for me to be related to both the husband and wife, all of their grandparents, and one or two of their kids' spouses! LOL! When entering the grandchildren of one person who passed away, I found that one set of my 4th great grandparents appeared in their tree 7 times!!! Plus, a set of my 3rd great grandparents appeared 2 times in their tree. I wonder if this is how the term, "kissing cousins" came about?

My grand mother is also my aunt! My mother is my first cousin.

Thank You, I can't wait to get time to really sit down and watch and take notes. I have a family briar patch that is a confusing mess. One couple is my 7th great grandparents twice over and the family their children married into married into two other families repeatedly.

I heard of one prominent (read rich planter) family in S. Carolina who intentionally arranged marriages of cousins so that the property would remain in the family.

That's fantastic, Kate! Thanks for sharing! What has been your favorite discovery through your research?

I've gotten to great grandparents. Not sure just how far I'll be able to trace my family back, but it is fun seeing all of them on the tree. Also have cousins once removed added. Still need to ask my aunts and uncles a lot of questions to gather more info for my tree. Hopefully I can learn a lot more. My tree is already so huge and haven't even gone that far back yet at all.

My family tree on my mothers side, from Missouri doesn't fork nearly as much as it should... Que Deliverance music.

I got rid of the duplicates however I am having problems with relationships. I have one line that 3 sons are my direct ancestors however FTM is not recognizing the relationship as directs but as uncles even though I added him as a father he is called my uncle and his wife as my great grandmother. In this same line, in one case the father is called my uncle and the mother is called wife of the uncle. I know that one person is both my 5th & 6th great-grandfather.

I recently discovered my grandfather had two children with his 2nd cousin, but they were never married. This was as recently as the early 1930s

This is the first time I've watched one of these and it was very helpful! I have a lot of duplicates. However I think there is some glitch which has in many places resulted in my having up to 10 duplicates of each child of a couple! How does this happen and how can I fix it? There is no way I could have added them that I can think of. I have subscribed to this channel now and will watch more videos for sure :-)

Wonderful video, Crista. My tree is a nightmare of distant cousins marrying other distant cousins. (They lived in rural Iowa and rural Ohio.) There were basically a dozen families in these areas and they intermarried in about 101 different ways. (I joke sometimes that my grandfather left rural Iowa so he could replenish the gene pool.) I might literally be my own grandpa, great uncle, and 2nd cousin twice removed. :-)

This must be awkward for couple swapping. I had a friend in kindergarten whose parents met another couple. Both couples divorced and married the other. Like to see how ancestry would approach that.

Coming from a First Nations Reserve in Canada where it's isolated. So when I did a family tree on my paternal grandmother's maternal grandmother and her three siblings. Many of the community can trice their roots back to one of the 4 siblings but also many second, third and forth cousins marrying each other 🤔 thank goodness my mom came from a different reserve when my dad met her 😂

Thanks for this video, my maternal grandfather appears 3 times in my tree and I was worried that I didn't add him correctly. I checked the index and he shows up only once.

Dear Crista Cowan, your video's are done well and very professional. I had a problem with this one though, the quality was 480p and so the small lettering on your charts was illegible. If you could at least make your video in 720p it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and keep up the good work.

I have seen half-cousins marrying, where they descend from one common ancestor from 2 different marriages. That's something you would have to watch out for as well.

Crista, can you do a video of how to clean up a person’s record? I have the same alternate fact listed more than once in an individual tree with each alternate fact tied to different source. I have multiple sources for my primary DOB and a few sources for an alternate date.

Tammatha - I only have one family tree. I always recommend that others do the same - for many reasons. (Crista)

Yeah could be 1400's or in my family it is 19th Century Kentucky. My uncle and my brother also married sisters. Nothing wrong with it...just crazy on the tree.

Hi, loved the information. I am trying to figure out the best way to use family group records as far as tracking individuals and family group pages. I can't seem to find much information on this. How do you number the families and individuals; specifically on familysearch, but I am also on Ancestry? Also, I married a Jones and would love to know if you have John B. Jones born 1812 of Wales, Married Gwilynn "Gwen" Rhys born 9, Jan. 1810 Wales, died 19 Sept, 1865 Ohio, had son Edward Morrison Jones born 27, Oct. 1840 Ohio, died 26 April 1912 he married Nancy Ann Kyle of Downs Kansas 25 Nov. 1863. My tree is a bit of a mess. I am not even sure where to start on the clean up process but I was thinking the family group sheets might help.

Luv the earrings, look great on you, thx for ur help.

Appreciate the info, but now I realize how little I really know about creating my family tree. I just have one and it’s grown in so many directions, it’s overwhelming! I think it would make so much more sense if I had one tree for each family line, is that what I should be doing? (Such a beginner!) thanks!

ancestry needs duplicate checking when adding new people

Thanks Crista... I'm Cajun (France - Canada- France- Louisiana). While my father's ancestry crosses, so does my mother's AND they crossed into one another from as far back as the 1600's. For instance 2 brothers inhibited Canada in the 1600's. I'm related to one from my mom's side and the other from my father's side, making my grandma(dad's mom) and my mom related. This has happened many times over. The running joke is I have a wreath, not a tree. What really makes it difficult is the same names... The French seem to use names of the older generation in the next generation, so you may have a Jean born 1600's and 2 or 3 Jean's (cousins) born in the 1700's. :)

This is driving me crazy! I have a duplicate family however they are not duplicated in the side panel but on the my descendant report.

Yes! This happened with me my paternal great grandpa Elvin married his first cousin Gladys. There mothers were sisters

Thanku so much i now will merge

My dad's grandmother on his mom's side married my dad's Grandfather on his dad's side. It was both their second marriage so it wasn't inbreeding. Ancestry can't process that for some reason it shows them and my dad's parents and grandparents twice but didn't duplicate them.

I have a large tree as well at times you cannot merge the duplicates especially if they are cousins. You still end up with duplicates. I have to "carefully" delete them. I do it by actually numbering them. I put a 1 in front of the first duplicate then a 2 in front of the next duplicate and so on, this way when I merge or delete I know exactly which person I'm working on and do not delete the wrong person by accident. This happens for names that have ben added when they are not related.

Thanks Crista, I have cousins marrying cousins and also I can go on the 1850's census and find just about every relative on my fathers side living in the same county during that time frame. So even the ones that were not related lived in the same area with large amounts of children who married each other. My tree also goes from Ark to Mo to Tn to NC and Ga and I am still looking for my Jones side....lol....I kinda ignore that side since it gives me a really HUGE headache !!Too Many Jones!!

I have a niece that married her Uncle three generations ago!

why can't there be a symbol on the people so visually I can see that john smith 2 & 8 are the same and the other 12 are different thanks god for middle names. just wish more people would use them!

Do you do both parents on the same tree? To me that makes since but i have been told to do two trees. However I find duplicates that way

This actually happened in my family

So you can merge a person across family lines and it not mess up the lineage or your tree. For example, I have a set of grandparents who are related to me 3 different ways. On my Moms side they are my grandparents 2 times and on my Dads side they are my grandparents one time! I can merge those 3 individuals into one person and it will not mess up my tree! Each time they will keep their place in my tree as it is now with them listed 3 different times?

I have a lot of distant cousins marrying each other in the 1800s. I've never encountered first cousins but a lot of same surnames.

MY grandfather and his brother (my great uncle) married two (2) sister's my grandmother and my great aunt. in my family tree it shows duplicate people. how do i merge them correctly?

Jon, I did a family tree for a coworker(No Relation!). But then, found our lines crossed in the early 1700's! Since then, I've found two more crossings of descendants from that original crossing. Charlemagne is 900 years earlier; he must have many tens of thousands of descendants by now. So, not only can it be true, but it's not even all that surprising.

I do the same way in my family tree to.

Also, two double 1st cousin had a baby so; its a major collapse when I put them on my family tree with child.

I made a tree on a long row of connected pieces of old computer paper (with the holes along the edges) and had to list lots of couples twice, not because they appear twice in the tree, but because I wanted to list people with their parents and siblings as well as with their husbands, wives and children. I then took the version of them that appears with siblings and parents as the primary version with the dates on, and the other one where they appear connected to their spouse (amongst his or her family) had an arrow drawn on pointing towards where to find them, "-> See [SURNAME]" to find the person with their parents etc. (-> or

After my 3rd g-grandfather died, my 3rd g-grandmother married my 4th great uncle (my 3rd g-grandfathers uncle on his mothers side). It has completely messed up my relationship chart. How do I fix it?

I know this video is pretty old, but I was wondering if you could answer a question. My 2nd great-grandparents were 3rd cousins AS WELL AS 1st cousins, once removed. How do I deal with that???

Can someone help me find my ancestor? She doesn't appear anywhere.

What is my first cousin‘s child to me and what would that child be to my daughter?

Not quite a cousin marriage but..... my bio mom is half 2nd cousin to my bio dad. Mom's half sister is my aunt, but also my 2nd or 3rd cousin because she is related to my dad.

I did my family tree and I'm still trying to figure out how close of a cousin I am to myself. 😂 I have a 5th ggf twice!

because the parents are in there twice (in your example I think it was Dan and Harriet) how would you relate them to you? example, as your grate grandparents or grate grate grandparents?

We found out my brother married a cuisine 5% shared DNA. They had 2 girls

me and my mother are both adopted so doing the trees from birth names i was doing my mothers tree and she had a 4th grate grandmother marrying her SON!!

What if your related to a Royal in my case several, over 5 to 6 times?

I have multiple family trees because of different families. Should I combine them into one tree or just have them separate?

My family on both sides foes back to approximately goes back to 500AD

There's no way to remember EVERYONE in your tree from memory. It sure would be nice to have, not only "Potential Spouse/Child" flag... but also a "This person may already be in your tree" flag.

This is a problem centuries ago in England. 1st cousins married 1st cousins. The program won't accept it.

How do you work out DNA when 1st Cousins Marry

I had to go through and confirm some things 3times as one woman kept popping up in my tree. Shes my 5th great grandmother on one side my 6th great grandmother on the other , 6th great aunt on and on. That’s pretty “on brand” for Kentucky I’m thinking. Then I got to the Norwegian side..... it’s worse. smdh geeZ could ya move a county over and get some fresh input gran?

I'll just marry someone from a totally different race. Problem solved.

In my family tree I have a case of two brothers marrying two sisters, and don't know how to show that, where to put them. I have another case of a man marrying one sister and when she died he married her younger sister, so do I put him in my tree twice, as the spouse of each sister?

I get way too many distant cousins I’ve trashed lots of them especially ones with no trees.

I need some help to understand this in my family. My great grand parents were first cousins. Their fathers were brothers. What are they to me? Please help, this confuses me so much.

How many people do you have in your family tree

My grandparents were cousins.... Ooof

I'm wanting to know how to fix double ups on my Ancestry online tree where the double ups happened because cousins married cousins, not because they were entered twice. How do you find which people are the ones causing the trouble. I've just noticed that I have multiples of people on one line of my family and I have 84 people with that surname, many of whom married multiple times. Did I miss something in the video?

When a couple marries who are second cousins, what is their child to them? A son or daughter and also, technically, a second cousin once or twice removed? And if the second cousins marry, their grandson is also a cousin, a third cousin?

I find them often

have you heard of brother and sisters marrying? In my family back in 14's & 13"s I have brother and sister marrying and their children brother and sister married... Does this happen often back then?????

In breeding

I would have thought that on a tree with duplicate couples, the most recent version of them (closest to the present in terms of generations and highest up on the pedigree view) would be where the tree goes further back from them. Wherever else they appear there should be a star or something * saying 'see (elsewhere)' for their ancestors.It makes sense to display that couple twice (or more?!) but there's no need to duplicate their parents and so on, just refer to (point to) where the 'main version' of them is on the tree. One of the things I wondered about with family history was how long it might take to find a duplicate couple in the tree. Just in the past week or so it happened for the first time, - potentially, if all the links are correct. One couple (of my great-x3-grandparents) who married seem to both descend from the same couple - 4 generations further back on the husband's side and 5 generations back on the wife's side. I worked out this makes them 3rd cousins once removed, so their children would be 3rd cousins twice removed of the husband and 4th cousins of the wife, including the husband's son from his previous marriage. It would also make my 1st and 2nd cousins (and maybe further cousins) also be 8th cousins once removed with me (and I'd be my own 8th-cousin-once-removed!). So the duplicate couple (if correct) would be 7th great grandparents on one branch and also 8th on another but I'd count them primarily as 7th and where they have their 'secondary appearance' as 8th great grandparents that would be the end of the branch, because everyone further back from that point is already somewhere else. If they really are the first case of a duplicate couple, I'd have only 1022 new ancestors on the 8th-great-grandparent level since these 2 are counted among the 512 7th-great-grandparents, so 2044 9th-gr-grandparents, 4088 10th-gr-gr, etc unless there are more duplicates to account for. There are another couple elswhere in my tree (5th-great-grandparents) with the same surname, but it's hard to say if they were related to each other because it's a fairly common name and I haven't been able to identify the husband's parents from a few possibilities, and think there are maybe 2 (maybe more) possible parent couples for the wife. I think it's highly likely they are related but how closely or distantly is unknown and will probably stay that way. There is some contradictory information on the husband (different ages and birthplaces in different censuses) which makes it difficult to say which birth record is his. They could be as close as 1st cousins, or as distant as 10th or more! My guess is between 1st and 4th cousins is fairly likely considering how little people moved around.