Incest?!?!?!?!?

[Belle]

OK....SO....

My husband's mom and dad both grew up in the same town. They both have different last names. His dad came from family "x" and "y" and his mom came from family "m" and "n".

On facebok, there is a group and they are having a family reunion. It is the family name "x" from my father in laws side and another family. I thought the OTHER family was related to my mother in law though?!?!

My father in law told me he and my mother in law didn't know each other before they were married.

However, I am PANICKING that MAYBE somewhere along the lone a cousin, or second cousin or SOMETHING was related and married.

Like, his dad once said that he had a cousin on the "x" side who married a cousin on the "y" side.

Does that have ANYTHING to do with us?!?!?!?!

Also, I once met a girl who said HER aunt married MY mother in laws brother, and they had a kid, so she is related to my husband....but she had people on common on facebook with my father in law! IT IS SO CONFUSING!?!?!?!?!?!

I am FREAKING out because my husband and I want kids and I am afraid of something genetic.

THOUGHTS?!?!?!?!

[Bruce]

You may relax. It is legal for first cousins to marry in most states because science has determined there is no additional risk of negative recessive traits being passed on. The possibility that cousins in previous generations may have married could not possibly be a concern, a fact which is obvious from the above.

[andy c]

Get tested.
You are more than likely just fine, but get tested if it is freaking you out.

[?]

Don't visit Iceland. Everybody is somebody's cousin there and they aren't all genetic mutants. It's not unusual to have cousin marriages in families. I have many of them in my extended family from long ago. A hundred or more years ago it was not uncommon and I uncovered it on both sides of my family. Many times it was to keep land and resources in a family. Queen Elizabeth is related to her husband Prince Phillip on both sides of her family. Second cousin on one side and third cousin on another. They both go back to Queen Victoria. She is 87 and her husband is 92 and both are doing rather well and so are their offspring. It's not necessarily true that inbreeding is bad. Sometimes you can double the good, if there are good genetics in the family. Other times you can double the bad. If you marry randomly, it can be good or bad. It all is a luck of the draw as far as genetics and if anyone carries delirious genetics. It doesn't matter if there are some cousins marriages if the genetics are good. You can pick someone not related and have bad genetics enter your gene pool. I wouldn't worry about it at all.

[Gray Bold]

Nothing to worry about. Marriages between first and second cousins account for over 10% of marriages worldwide. This does not create genetic problems.

[mareeclara]

In parents who are unrelated the percentage of normal births is 96% in related parents (ie.closely related) the perecentage of noraml births is 94%. What accounts for those extra issues are rare genetic diseases that occur in families and will generally never get seen and need 2 parents to carry that trait for a child to get it.

Everyone likes to play up on the incest leading to mental retardation and other horrible things but in reality while there is an increased risk of these rare diseases, most children born are perfectly fine. Also there would probably be a lot of people walking around who are the result of incest and not know it (and are perfectly fine).

Most of the royal families in Europe are related and the Queen herself married a close cousin. It is more of a moral issue than anything. Also people who are related and not raised togather can also be attracted due to genetic sexual attraction (and actual phenomona).

[brother_in_magic]

Relax. Listen, everyone in the world is related. Nearly 100% of men in western Ireland have the same y-dna--they all share a common ancestor, and they share the SAME dna also with most British, Spanish, French and even German men. 47% of Europeans maternally have mtdna H--nearly half descend from ONE WOMAN.
It is exactly the same for non-Europeans.
We all came from a small group of people in a time when death rates were high. There was no one to marry BUT relatives in many cases though obviously in most cultures (barring ancient Egypt) sister/brother, father/daughter etc were taboo.
In most countries there is no bar on cousins marrying and the amount of defects is not particularly high though, yes, slightly higher than if you have no known relationship. Obviously it would depend on what illnesses etc wee in the family. If you are all healthy, with no prior genetic defects, a close marriage will NOT, of itself, produce abnormalities...this would happen only if you both carried genes for such.

[Bobbin]

A shot glass of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. A brother and sister or parent and child can and usually do have perfectly healthy children. No other relationship carries any noteworthy risk. If an inherited illness like hemophilia or Tay-Sachs gets passed on, it affects the immediate offspring, not just future generations. There are no "monster babies" waiting to be born in any case; genetics doesn't work that way.

If you have any concerns, simply pay a genetics lab to test you and your husband for any potential genetic problems.