Do you have Kissing Cousins in your ancestry? Are you researching a marriage that share's the same name as in my WALTER/WALTER ancestors? Or maybe you have two relatives that married into another family twice, such as two sisters marrying two brothers; or a group of families that intermarried repeatedly? If you have this situation in your family tree, then you may have already realized that these ancestors can be a very elusive bunch.

Since they married into the same family/families that means you have at least one ancestor who actually plays two separate ancestral roles in your heritage (or maybe more, as in my case, one of my ancestors serves three different roles and of course, so do his wife, his parents, her parents and their ancestors as well). There is an UP side and a DOWN side to this situation. On the up side, you have less ancestors to search out. Most people would be Jumping and shouting "Oh JOY!!"; but on the down side, since you have less ancestors to search out, you most likely also have less people who are searching for them, and potentially less Cousins to find.

Unlike normal ancestry when two parents bring two separate families into the fold who each bring in more separate families - in same family marriages there is only one offshoot branch on the tree that's missing on that side, and that's only if there is a new family introduced. In some of my families, they married into the same families over and over for several generations. Because of this, less "extra" relatives were brought into the group and less people will probably end up researching that line. This can be a real problem (especially when you have this on both sides of a marriage as I do)!!

If you have experienced this situation, then this is definitely the list for YOU. If you just simply have two family members married into the same family,or a rumor of such, you are also welcome to try your luck here.

Please, join us, but keep in mind to emphasize those cousin relationships, that's why the list was created.

In my family I have a WALTER/WALTER marriage, the bride is the second cousin of the groom (they share a set of ancestors - his grandparents, her great-grandparents). I also have a group of families that intermarried repeatedly. The names I'm researching in this group are WILKINSON, DEROCHBRUNE, WOOTERS, DOWNES, HALL, MULLIKIN and WILSON (all are direct lines but also share other relationships among themselves). I also have a WILSON/MULLIKIN marriage which produced a MULLIKIN son who went on to marry another WILSON female (both direct lines - but, both WILSON's aren't proven to be the same family yet) and a DOWNES marriage whose granddaughter was from another DOWNES line through a brother of a great-grandfather.

If you have had experience with this type of "wrap around genealogy", drop me an E-mail if you'd like, at: cajincoon.com and tell me about it. I'd love to hear what your Kissing Cousin connection is and how you've fared in searching for them.

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