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Archiver > BRETHREN > 2001-09 > 0999944762


From: Merle C Rummel <>
Subject: [BRE] Re: first cousin marriages
Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 06:26:02 -0400
In-Reply-To: <002201c13794$537441e0$0200a8c0@sptnbrg1.sc.home.com>



> Were first cousin marriages common among Brethren. I realize that it was
>a small and somewhat closed community in which such might naturally occur
>often, but I like to know if there was any kind of pressure against such
>marriages. When I find evidence that suggests such marriages in my family,
>should that raise flags about the validity of my conclusions?
>------------

I've been interested in the 1st cousin discussion -- let me add a few
observations:

(Elder) C C Petry (Neelie) -came 15 miles (from Prices Creek Church to the
Four Mile Church) -so he wouldn't have to marry kin (wife's grandfather).

In writing the Petry Book -we visited one elderly lady -who was a Petry
-who had married a Petry. We asked her if she had married kin --"OH NO!"
(well, yes -he was kin -but of the other line of Petry family who had come
to Ohio -3 brothers -back in 1828) -- and she was horrified.

Of course, my favorite example is Sherry Petry's grandmother: "I can
criticize the Petry's -- My mother was a Petry who married a Petry; I
married a Petry, whose mother was a Petry who married a Petry." (all three
lines of our Petry's).

I am observing that there were standards against close kin marriage -maybe
from the referenced Annual Meeting Query. But here on the "frontier"
-where they lived in family communities -there was considerably cousin
marriages.

Madelaine (wife/ex-wife) is kin to herself 3 ways on the Petry side and 3
ways on the Miller-Lybrook-Kingery side.

Merle C Rummel
Church Historian

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