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Thinking about this... my g grandfather married his grand neice as his second wife. My grandfather is her son. He would clearly be a cousin to his mother, but I'll bet somehow he would also be his own cousin. It was complicated enough to figure out how first and second wife were related with a whole generation inbetween so I think I'll deal with the details later.
Back in the REALLY 'olden days'...1700s/early 1800s...there was a lot of cousin marriages but luckily for a lot, when they migrated to other places, there might be four or five other families moving with them. Some of them were related, some not, but marriages took place within the families. My grgrandfather married his mother's cousin...so his 1st cousin, once removed...and they had 12 kids. And not one birth defect.
My mother married my half-brother. Yep. My dad was 19 years older than her. She had met and dated his son in the late 1950's, they broke -up. Then, she met and married my dad. When he died, she got back together with his son/my half-brother, and they got married. So.... yeah, makes things interesting
My daughter married my half brother. Not being raised around my side of the family they didn't know one another until they were adults. They had met once, when she was 2 and he was 12 but that's it. They got 'involved' when both divorced and he was helping her out with household chores, moving etc. and they hit it off. I didn't like the idea, mostly because of the relationship but partly because I KNOW my brother and didn't think he was very good marriage material. She was wife number three. I was right and they divorced after ten years but it sometimes causes a bit of a problem when we have family things. SHE couldn't care less if he's there and treats him like anyone else. He, on the other hand, holds grudges. With all his drugging, drinking, womanizing and Mr. Macho attitude she had plenty of reason to be resentful but bless her for not holding grudges.
What shocked me was that my parents were ALL for the 'union'. Being the 'radical' Christians that they were I was really surprised but they felt that she was "good for him". When they got married they had to sign a paper that they wouldn't have kids but neither wanted anymore anyway. She had one and he had two. She was in her 30s and he in his 40s. Actually nobody would have even known there was any kind of relationship there if they hadn't told them. They didn't have anywhere near the same last names, etc.. Living in a small town a lot of people knew but the only ones that were 'incensed' about it were family. And, of course, their exes! I simply never voiced my opinions...
Two people who have the same parents are siblings. Even if you are an only child, there is a person who has the same parents as you, namely yourself. So by your reasoning, you are your own sibling. Any rivalry? Seriously though, kinship is between two people, and you are only one person.
I bet you would be surprised how often that may happen.
More than once on both sides of my tree.
Right. Closer to home. I am my own cousin from my father's second marriage. My step-mother is my aunt. Or, should I say my aunt is my step-mother? Whatever, quite a family.
Two people who have the same parents are siblings. Even if you are an only child, there is a person who has the same parents as you, namely yourself. So by your reasoning, you are your own sibling. Any rivalry? Seriously though, kinship is between two people, and you are only one person.
It's a deep question. Think about it from a DNA science perspective. Say you are like me, and are descended from a 18th century couple 4x over. I likely carry multiple, small segments of DNA that come from this couple, but were passed down to me through different family lines.
Does it make more sense for me to appear on this couple's family tree just once? Maybe, I am just one person. On the other hand, those DNA chunks that passed down to me are likely unique to ONE specific line of his descendants, not the others, so I represent 4 different lines of descent from this couple, and should be listed four times over as to not confuse how each individual DNA segment came to be present in me.
Two people who have the same parents are siblings. Even if you are an only child, there is a person who has the same parents as you, namely yourself. So by your reasoning, you are your own sibling. Any rivalry? Seriously though, kinship is between two people, and you are only one person.
As people have pointed out this was pretty common in small communities.
I was surprised not to find more, though I'm from the West so my lines stayed for a couple generations and then moved on minimizing the opportunity.
Even then I have a set of ancestors on my mother's side that were 1st cousins once removed. Making me my own 9th cousin once removed. The ancestral couple I double descend from were quakers in Pennsylvania in the late 1600s and early 1700s named John Cox m. Rachel Duskin (some trees list her as Rachel Embree Carr).
As it turns out I found a single shared ancestor on my father's line to my mothers (despite them tracing in the near term back to different regions of the US, but eventually back to some of the same places). It just so happens that single shared ancestral couple is also John Cox m. Rachel. So I descend from them three times making me my own 9th cousin and 9th cousin once removed.
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