People tend to marry and reproduce with others who share their culture and life experiences. While there are exceptions to this practice, it is not hard to see why people gravitate towards others with whom they have things in common. It’s human nature.
Some cultures encourage this in a subtle fashion. Some cultures and groups are more stringent in their requirement that members of the group marry others within the group.
That practice is referred to as endogamy. An endogamous group is one where individuals marry within the group.
My maternal ancestors who came to the United States in the late 19th century from Ostfriesland were somewhat endogamous. All of my maternal ancestors (until my mother married in 1967) married others in the same ethnic community. This was encouraged by culture and church. They were not the only group to do this. Ethnic settlements throughout the United States did this in both rural and urban settings.
It wasn’t just immigrants who had this practice. Certain religions encourage marriage within the faith, some more strongly than others. A cluster of migrants from Virginia to Kentucky who later move into Missouri may tend to have children and grandchildren who marry within the same descendant group.
That’s how some of us end up with double and triple relatives.
No responses yet