Inbred Family of Appalachia: The Truth About Inbreeding 

It's telling how willingly and skillfully those with power and influence can literally fabricate stereotypes to further their own interests by preying on the human tendency to judge and condemn others. Creating deliberate falsehoods and presenting thinly veiled allegations and insinuations to pit groups against one another isn't new at all. These videos have helped me to better understand the region and its people in many diverse ways.

I was a Middle School Principal of a beautiful, modern, school in Appalachia when a professor, and a couple of university students stopped by our school. They asked to speak with me in my office, and I was totally surprised to hear that they were doing research on the extreme poverty in Appalachia, and wanted me to recommend places they should visit in our district in order to get some pictures of dilapidated houses in remote areas that they could photograph. At that time the coal industry was booming in Appalachia, and money was abundant. I politely informed them that if they were looking for pictures of extreme poverty they would have more luck going to the slum neighborhoods in any relatively large city. Most large cities have more poverty, more crime, and more problems in general than what was present in Appalachia at that time.

Leave it to the government to destroy perfectly good places

I find this fascinating because West Virginia is a state that requires blood test and a waiting period of three days before marriage. Born there but haven’t lived there in 35 years. I think people just want to continue an old myth.

Proof that it can happen anywhere: My husband's family is from the mid-western states. But when my husband's parents first got the internet in the mid 1990s, my mother-in-law got heavily into genealogy. At one point, she was stunned to find out that she and her husband were distant cousins. They had no idea! The entire family got a huge laugh out of that! We never thought of it as necessarily a bad thing. It was just an interesting thing, and amusing. So yeah, my husband's parents were related and had 6 children together and a wonderful, long marriage. ♥ We sure miss them. We lost her in 2006, then lost him in 2012. They really were the glue that held our huge family together. Many of us scattered in the winds after they were gone.

West Virginians are the friendliest ppl you'll ever run across....just don't call us stupid ☺😍

Josh, this is a topic that needed to be flushed out and presented. You've done a very fine job of it. Those so called "ignorant hillbillies" have made giant contributions to society. Look at the music industry alone. Such beauty is not generated by stupidity and ignorance. They were extremely talented, innovative and hardworking people. A heritage to be proud of and esteemed, not ridiculed and shamed. Well done. Keep shedding light and truth on these subjects. You're doing it proud. 🥰

The coal field regions of Appalachia are very diversified, if you recall coal companies imported people from Italy, Germany, Hungary, Africa, Scotland Wales just to mention a few. Initially theses people were separated by community but as the language barrier broke down they intermarried , so if you think about it based on the sparsity of the overall population as compared to NY Chicago and other metropolitan areas there is probably much more genetic diversity in the Appalachian area than in those areas as a whole.

There was a time not too far back (in my lifetime) when lots of people married 1st cousins. It wasn't realized that negative health conditions could result. It wasn't considered incest "back when". Now we know better. Inbreeding certainly isn't confined to one group of people. You've handled this problem very sensitively and well. These misconceptions need to be cleared up. Good video.

Such a misunderstood area. Glad someone out here is FINALLY shedding more positive and accurate light on it! ♥️

Thank you for this. Most of my kin come from southern and western North Carolina, as well as southwestern Virginia, and southern West Virginia. I’ve heard this ridiculous stereotype perpetuated in all three states, and it’s sad that the vast majority of people who seem to believe it have never been south of New York…

I’m from the south but live in SoCal. It’s incredible how often, even in professional staff meetings, I’ve heard jokes & references to incest in Southern culture. This is the most PC, ‘Woke’ society in the U. S.! They are shocked when I point out they are perpetuating negative stereotypes.

thank for this concise information. I'm gonna watch the rest of your videos. Keep up the good work :) John, Netherlands.

Looking forward to watching you as you travel across the area!!!

Im from Chicago and I always knew that was BS. About the Appalachian area.

So happy to see your videos are about researching and sharing the truths about the wonderful people of Appalachia. Great job. Keep them coming!

Great work and insight! Far too many find fault in others, which is to highlight differences, in attempts of hiding our glaring similarities.

Thank you for explaining the way it actually is! Love your content! Keep it comin' !

Glad to listen to your thoughts on a topic often ignored or disparagingly and unfairly applied to folks of Appalachia. Good to see your “ unedited” version for full perspective! 😉

Awesome job as always brother! Appreciate you and everything you do!!!

I'm watching your videos from Kenya i love them ❤

A lot of times it is the accusers that are the ones who actually doing the deed.

I haven’t been able to watch much lately. But first off - Thank you. Thank you for saying what needed to be said. I hate those stereotypes of Southern Appalachian people and particularly Southern West Virginians - the whole region. As always great job!

Hello new subscriber from Nebraska..ive enjoyed watching yourr videos today..

Wow you are an extremely well spoken articulate individual.

Thank you sir, my family's from eastern Kentucky, and we hear that kissin cousins garbage all the time. What a kind way to shed light on this dark subject. God bless you. ❤🙏

When I did my DNA a while back to find my bio parents, I discovered that 25% of my ancestry comes out of the White Sulphur Springs area. I also discovered that a lot of first cousins married each other…especially in one family line. So much so, that as each generation kept marrying first cousins, the shared DNA was much greater than what normal first cousins would have and that got passed down. And good to see I’m not the only one following Nathaniel Jeanson. If you’ve never done a DNA test, you should. Do it through Ancestry first because they have the biggest database and easiest way to discover your family tree. Just be prepared, you may find a surprise!

Josh, I'm a little behind on these videos. This was excellent! There are RU-vid channels that I probably shouldn't name and you already know about that are capitalizing on this very subject. Encouraging the stereotyping that unfortunately makes those viewers who buy into it prove their own ignorance. I'm very outspoken and too old to change. And I've let these channels know what I think of them, without filters. I actually got one response that stated " why hate?"lol Your talent and intelligence is literally the ammunition we need to break this tabu. Thanks so much!

Very well done video and lots of information shared..... just cant get some of those scenes from " Deliverance " out of my head.

Well said my friend. Going to that area this because of your videos.

I’ve been fascinated by all things Appalachia now for a few months, mainly from things just popping up on my timeline. Anyway, personally I just dove in and haven’t looked back, from Popcorn Sutton showing us about moonshine to family’s showing me beautiful cooking, and how to play a merry time. The mountains and the people drew me in. I hope one day just like my ancestors I get to step onto some part of the country and the history, that would mean the world to me.

WV is my home state. I've never know an inbred family. I agree with your point at the end simply tracing your family trees back 40 generations (about 1000) years, would mean everyone had over 1 trillion ancestors alive 40 generations ago. I have thought about this. It has to be the case that there had to be inbreeding throughout the centuries.

My wife's maternal grandmother is a freebleeder from Haysi, Virginia. Not sure you're helping lol. Might wanna do a history of Haysi and get an idea of how isolated those folks were especially during the winter.

Nice Job...Like your work.

Thank you for explaining all of this! Love all of the history that I’m learning from your channel. Keep up the great work!!

It has happened everywhere but even so it was very rare and not condoned by the rest of the population,,,,

I live in a small part of West Virginia and my grandmother on my fathers side was originally a Varney and my grandmother on my mothers side was originally a Varney. Supposedly two different groups of Varneys but this is a small area. I’m here in Mingo County just outside of Williamson city limits.

I think with the IVF treatment, there will be a lot of related siblings all around the world. God knows where that is going to end up !

Yep it happens all over. My family comes from eastern NC and when doing my genealogy I found some instances of it.

Thanks for watching! Let me know where I should explore next!! Help Me Preserve Appalachian History and its many amazing stories, people, & places by subscribing to this channel! JOIN: Support this channel and become an official member for Exclusive Member benefits FACEBOOK: facebook.com/mountainrootshomestead PATREON: Support my work by becoming a monthly Patron at www.patreon.com/MountainRootsProductions Business or Collaboration Inquiries: mountainrootsmail@gmail.com

My husband was born and raised in southern West Virginia. He never knew anyone that was married to a relative. As a matter of fact, the only people I ever knew that married their first cousin was my sister’s in-laws and they were Greek. So much for stereotypes.

Another great job with an important topic. Being from McDowell County I was aware of the stereotype, though I realized it was total bullshit..Long live the Appalachian people!

Eugenics was once wildly popular among intellectual elites, and the idea that poorer people were genetically “inferior”

In researching using DNA, I have discovered a couple of what I call "nests" coming out of Kentucky. Problems which once solved will surely unravel my brick walls and give meaningful explanations to the cousin matches I have. The first one involves Edmonson, Kentucky and the names Meredith, Skaggs, Sanders, and Wells - those are the main ones. It seems there is no end of the cousins I have at the 4th-6th and 5th- 8th level coming from Joseph Meredith (1761-1840) and Nancy Skaggs (1763-1840). I feel like this will be the line of my 3rd great grandmother but I can't figure out how. My brick wall ancestor is Pleasant Wright (1824-1899) it is his parents for whom I am looking. The marriage patterns are certainly overlapping but these people seemed to have a way to keep it straight... and while they married first cousins - the families were so large and spread out time-wise - it must have not seemed li The next nest comes out of Pike County, Kentucky and involves the George Hatfield/Anna McKinney line. It seems that Rutherfords or Osbornes marry into the Mays, Lowes, Maynards, Hatfields, McCoys of the area. i don't feel that I am a direct descendant of anyone here, but certainly could be. I have yet to untangle the cousin matches here as well and they come from several lines.. But again I have a large number of DNA cousin matches whose trees head right back to Eastern Kentucky. Through this search, I have seen many large loving and connected families. Supporting and in touch with each other - even through second cousins. I have to respect that as I never even knew many of my first cousins... and my sister has never even met my son. Thanks for tackling this subject.

Do you have any pointers or sources or direction for best ways to research DNA & family tree? Looking to delve into my great-grandfathers lineage, he was born somewhere near Tazwell

I live in Montgomery County MD and I know a couple of families that have done this . I was told by the eldest of one family . They didn't have transportation to find other women . It is what it is . Yes our global family tree is closer than we think .

I went to middle/high school in highland county va, the kids who went to school also perpetuated a stereotype of inbredding in WV lol

And in Appalachia, poor health care and access to a regular decent diet .In the army in the early 70s,the ones from those regions told me it was the only time in their life they ever had 3 meals a day. And alot was biscuits and gravy back home

I tell people the story of how my dad was first cousins with a man through his mother and my maternal grandfather was also first cousins with the man through the man's father. People freak out thinking were inbred. Somehow

I’m from Massachusetts born and raised lived in West Virginia for over 3 months worked as a home care taker. I was pregnant but didn’t know when I moved out there with a friend who was from the area. I loved in the Huntington county but also worked in Wayne county. Defiantly was a different living as I was used too. Before test I lived in NYC for nearly a year. Everyone was so sweet and nice and helped me out with my pregnancy. One woman I worked with in Wayne county has a coal train run through her backyard, I never saw that before and asked her about it, she told me and I thought it was fascinating cause I didn’t know anything about it. I was blessed to be able to work with such wonderful people. I ended up moving back to mass to be near my family before my son was born. I lived out there 16yrs ago

Good stuff 👍

I've got kin in Eastern Kentucky and sure u may have had it to a degree by 6 degrees of separation

Incest has happen in every region ,every timeframe often in the same household. I live in Appalachia and have know one instance of second cousins marrying and that is all. I don’t think incest is any more common here than anywhere else. I would say there are some surprises in some family trees like if a man had affairs with multiple women and those kids don’t know that they are related. That kind of thing happens out side of Appalachia also.

Excellent.

Well done. Thank you for all your work! 📼

It’s very strange to me that they made Appalachia a stereotype for inbreeding when it’s going to be the same reality for any small, rural town

Both sets of my parents are from wva, one north, one south. Neither of the family trees share incest. Darn shame that the government also labeled them as such. We were sharecroppers and miners.

Good video and interesting subject. A lot of people don't realize that inbreeding as we think of it today, was not just relegated to the Appalachian region. It was a social norm in most of the cultures. Look at the royal family for example. And most of the aristocracy that settled the colonies kept things pretty close to their chest so to speak. A lot of it was physical access to other people, yes, but it was also a social moré thing. I think a lot of people would be shocked if they actually looked at what the marriage laws are in their states, or at least up until about 40 or 50 years ago. Even ages were different - I know in many states, into the 1970's, as long as the groom was at least 14, and the bride was 12, it was ok as long as the parents approved (that one stands out because it sort of shock to me to see it, but there were actually a handful of states with that). Others were a little bit older, but not by much, and heaven forbid if you married outside your race, that was illegal. And the idea of marrying your cousin is taboo now, but in many places it's still perfectly legal, and second cousins is still so in most places. So it was normal back then and socially acceptable. Times and people have just changed. Keep the vids coming!

Moonshine did it!!!

Harlem on Father's Day..Mass confusion😅

Well done Josh thoughtful and thorough.

You’re a real gentlemen for making sure we don’t let the kids watch this one before a parental preview

I agree

LoL I have family all through the south and first cousin's did indeed get married way back in the day......

My Husband's Grandparents Were First Cousins.

My mother-in-law’s family is from there. 👀👀😬

Where is the video?

I can't count the number of inbreeding jokes I've heard since moving away from the area for my career. And I always thought maybe there was a grain a truth because I come from a very large family that shares a tiny community with a handful of other large families that come from the same region of Europe. But somehow it doesn't suprise me that it was made up for financial gain. It always seemed like whatever industry came in, they would use and abuse the area before leaving us either with their mess or financially worse off than before they came.

All my people are from Hancock County

My ancestors have lived in Hancock Co., TN since 1794. This county is the most isolated in the state. It has no railroad, and it is surrounded by mountains and ridges. I am related to 75% of the county's inhabitants. I have a 4th great grandfather who is my 4th great grandfather 5 times ( 3 times on my father's side and 2 times on my mother's side). My DNA shows me to be 70% British. The average British citizen today is only 60% British. This makes me more British than the British. My earliest English ancestor came to Virginia in 1607, and my most recent British ancestor arrived from Ireland in 1772. I guess you would call me inbred. However, I consider myself Hillbilly Nobility with 16 ancestors who served in the Revolution, 12 in the War of 1812 and 8 in the Civil War with 6 serving in the Union and 2 in the Confederacy. As an inbred, I am thankful to have a 135 IQ and a PhD in Public Administration.

I'm my own Grandpa😊

I am not surprised Charles Darwin married his cousin

Great series. Look at Europe especially Austria and Britain, Rampant inbreeding especially it royal families. Alot worse than Appalachia

Adam and Eva for example

Well done, 👍

Thanks M.R.❤️

Where do I get that shirt ?

Inbreeding happens all over the place, in all walks of life, across demographics, etc. There is no specific human population that is more or less inbred than others. In fact, if anything, the extremely wealthy inbreed far more, but of course that could be a biased opinion. After all, I don't know many extremely wealthy people, and that is pretty much the point. 😉

This sounds like the conspiracies b people come up with. Self pity. Exaggerating happens but these folks make horrible decisions around having huge , fatherless, families.

Good video

How do you really put words to this? Every issue of life we have today goes back to Genesis 3 with every illness, let down, lie, problem, death, pain, and hurt. And everything else that goes with it. But someday, somewhere soon, the 2nd coming of Christ will set the ship right again.

App-a-latch-a

For one thing, I don’t live in Appalachia. But I grew up as a po’ country boy. So I can feel touchy about running down country people.

There’s some level of inbreeding in a community that has been around for a long time. While it could be minute, the more ethnically homogeneous a society is, the more inbreeding that will occur. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as you can take a look at Iceland or other small nations and see they operate on a level of sophistication higher than most. It wouldn’t be that far fetched to say through one’s great great great grandfather didn’t spawn cousins who unknowingly got married in parts of the world.

I'm not into judmeltilism, however left alike,

5:20 Good video with good points, but you lost me here. Everything you're saying after this point either doesn't make sense, or is flat out wrong. The most recent research I've seen (within the last year) is how different we are from one another more so than previously thought, and how what appear to be small genetic distances are actually huge.

Mendals Peas

Its true tho ...there is proof

I love my family more than life. We’re keeping it in the family Keeping it in the family I’m your brother and your husband Your my sister and my wife.

Even the English across the pond use to married into their own family cousins Aunt's Uncles even in Africa there is a tribe still to this day get married into their own family they are called the Bird people because there hands and feet look like a Ostriches feet.

You just straight up rip off Real Appalachia. Idk if they realize it yet but others do and I’ll be happy to make them aware. This isn’t the first either. Come up with an original idea maybe?

Inbreeding in ancient days differs than inbreeding that’s more recent because we knew of the consequences of inbreeding. Ancients didn’t.

they marry their cousins in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills not in Appalachia

T-shirt shows the correct pronounciation. If you don't say Appalachia, I'll throw an apple at cha.

Damn it I can't help it if my family tree didn't fork much!! Lol 🤣