Wow, Modene, you just brought up a valid point for me, something I never thought of before, "old maids who were old maids because there was no one to marry?" I always thought they chose not to marry. I never thought of it that way. expanding my mind already. I have a question for the list, What are the social surroundings that caused your Cousins to marry, or do you know? My Cousins (of course I mean Ancestors but for this list, we will call them "our Cousins") were farmers in the State of Maryland near the Eastern Shore. Apparently, they weren't very close to the city, there was a small population and that didn't leave a whole lot of opportunity to socialize outside of the family atmosphere. Modene has a reason of Royalty that caused her families to intermarry, what's some of the others? Betsy Hale Proud RootsWeb Contributor