Anne, I just do not see it any other way. Look at my maternal bunch that migrated from the VA area prior to the RW and later through NC and SC to Bulloch County and later Clinch County, GA. Everyone of these folks, which include the TOMLINSON, DAME, SIRMAN, HARDEMAN, MOORES, FIVASH, STALVEY, etc. are all related to me in one way or another and these marriages flowed all the way down to South Georgia and accelerated, there, for the next 100 years. These people were also not part of Erskine CALDWELL's antithesis of Southern Culture, either. <grin> The more or less typical approved marriage of Colonial times was at a second cousin level with first cousins not outside the realm of possibility. I can go right down through hundreds of lines in my data and bingo, bingo, bingo -- cousin marriages all over the place. It has only been in the last 100 years that the gene pool has begun to expand with the exclusion of other families, accelerating after WW II. This was not all bad, either, because the divorce rate was almost non-existent in those days. <grin> I well could have married my second cousin. If I had known how she felt about me, I probably would have since I felt the same about her. However, I never told her and did not find out her feelings about me until some 20 years later after we were both married. Surprising how my wife and my cousin are both blondes, both have about the same disposition and both are Southern ladies, isn't it? Neither one of us have ever been divorced, either. Marriages among family members worked because they generally had more in common, were of a common religion and they also had the pressure and support of the family to help them through the difficult times all marriages face, at one time or another. Momma always said the reasons the TOMLINSONS "kept it close" was to keep the money and land in the family and I assume this was also the reason other families supported these types of marriages. Another reason was mothers were usually the match makers and there were only so many people in the general area and all of them were family of sorts, so the options were generally limited, more so earlier, than later. There is also the old axiom that "water seeks its own level" and people generally marry at their same level. Since there were only so many eligible persons of a certain class in a certain area, their options were also generally limited. This is why I chase collaterals. Not that people always married within these collaterals but like the card dealer at Las Vegas, I play the odds and the odds in that era was that kids married family and if not family, very close friends of family. I think when we get this "mess" straightened out we will find these families married over and over again into the same group of families, just like the MOORES and MOYES of Princess Anne County, VA who followed each other for some 300 years, as the story goes. I am also sure certain lines in these families occasionally broke with convention but you often see the next generation returning to this pattern. I am also sure you will see the same pattern in the "old country," as you later see in the Colonies. My wife and I were talking, yesterday, about the people who settled this country. They were not the "scum of Europe," as some like to depict them. Far from it, they were the best and the brightest of Europe, even in recent times. People came to the colonies for a "new lease on life" and were smart enough to realize the static old ways of their homeland did not offer them what they wanted or needed for themselves or their children. Sure, England lost a whole generation in World War I but their decline had begun some 300 years before, because their best and brightest, as well as the best and brightest of the rest of western Europe, had long since departed to America seeking their fame and fortune. I am also sure the intelligence vacuum in both Germany and Russia created the conditions which allowed the Nazi's and Communists to take over in both of these countries after World War I. A country survives on the collective efforts of its "best and brightest" and without the efforts of these two groups you will see a gradual decline in that countries prominence and. like Rome, its ultimate fate. We now live in an era where government attempts to "legislate equality," but like their failed attempts to "legislate morality" they will find these efforts do not work, either, because none of us are equal, except under the eyes of the law, if then. John R. Clarke Thomasville, GA ----- Original Message ----- From: <JetPilotUSAF100@cs.com> To: <DANIEL-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 2:59 AM Subject: [DANIEL-L] CORDIAL DANIEL ~ Keeping Marriages in the family. > Keeping Marriages In The Family ~ > > The 3rd spouse of Richard ASBURY, Mrs. Sarah WATTS, mentioned earlier... > > She was Sarah SHERRILL, b: 1786, Wilkes County, GA ~ Daughter of David WATTS. > Her 1st husband had been Archibald WATTS, d: JUL 1818, Greene County, GA > whom she married 16 DEC 1799, Green County, GA ~ Son of Thomas WATTS and Sarah > EARLY. > > Child of Sarah SHERRILL and Archibald WATTS: > Anne Elizabeth WATTS, bc: 1808 ~ married 17 APR 1824, to CORDIAL DANIEL ~ Son > of HENNING DANIEL and HANNAH ASBURY. > > So, John, I must agree with you regarding family associations and their > marriages down through the years... up to a 100 years at least, and maybe even near > 200. Think about the time I came along, my grams, b: 1869, had had enough... > wouldn't even let me play with my male cousins. > > Anne > > > > ==== DANIEL Mailing List ==== > Don't forget to change the Subject line of your message when you change the subject of a reply message. > >