This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: McLain, Stallings, Sweeney, Magruder, Beall etc. in KY early 1700s on Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/3kz.2ACIB/937.1.2 Message Board Post: Not often did brothers and sisters marry. Not in civilized society. A few exceptions exist, during times of plague etc., or in the case of slavery, but even there...it was known quite early on that this would cause deformation, and worse, creating a loss of property and often trouble during labor to the mother. Some families had been doing marriages between cousins for centuries when they came to America, with better results, but by far I have to disagree that marriages between siblings were ever 'common' let alone quite common, in America.