Photo: TikTok
Family reunions will be interesting.
By NyRee Ausler — Written on Jan 23, 2023
With sites like Ancestry.com and 23 & Me, DNA has made it possible to find out who is related to us and learn more about our family histories.
One woman got more than she bargained for when she and her husband decided to peruse their family tree.
The TikToker, Marcella Hill, shared a video detailing how the horrific revelation came about in her video captioned “I accidentally married my cousin.”
She learned her husband was her cousin while searching for baby names.
Hill starts by telling viewers that she has never revealed this secret to anyone. She says she and her husband were relaxing on the couch, searching for names for the baby they were having.
The couple decided to go through a site called Family Search to see if either one of them has a name that stood out in their bloodline.
As Hill and her spouse browsed through grandparents, mentioning their names, her husband said, “Oh, that’s funny. We have the same grandma and grandpa’s names.”
Doubtful, Hill looked over her husband’s family and told him that she believed he was mistakenly logged into her account.
After taking a closer look, the pair realized that he was logged in correctly and that Hill’s grandfather and her husband’s grandmother were first cousins.
The couple decided to get both grandparents on the phone and ask if they knew each other.
“Sure enough, they sure do. They lived together when they were growing up as children,” she says.
Hill tells viewers that she and her husband are third cousins. She also excitedly shares that they have won a prize for being the closest related in a neighborhood activity.
“And, when I go to my family reunion, he gets to go to his, too… at the same time!” as the video ends.
Hill understandably turned off comments on her controversial video.
Comments on the strange situation have been turned off. But it’s not hard to imagine what the reaction would be to Hill’s relationship with her cousin.
In a follow-up video, Hill defended her situation further when a viewer asked how she hadn't realized she was related to her husband at her wedding.
"Wedding? What wedding?" Hill asked before explaining, "We got married in a courthouse after work on a Wednesday."
She shared photos of the event and noted that no extended family members — or cousins — were there.
She also says that even if there had been a wedding and the link had been revealed there, "What were we supposed to do?"
In the end, the couple decided to carry on with the relationship. Surprisingly, they are not alone.
In Western culture, marriages between family members are a huge no-no, but still, about 0.2% of marital relationships are between people who are 1st and 2nd cousins.
This practice, known as intermarriage or consanguinity, has several risk factors associated with it.
Generally, closely related first cousins have double the chance of their babies having a birth defect than couples who are not blood-related.
But, contrary to popular belief, any children born to couples who are more distant than 1st or 2nd cousins would not be subject to the same inbreeding coefficients.
Though there are bans on marrying first and second cousins in 25 states, there are currently no blocks in place to prohibit 3rd cousins from marrying.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and author of seven books. She covers lifestyle, entertainment and news, and self-focused content, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues.