Hello Pat and Irene, Pat wrote: PBv> I am not aware that first cousin marriages have ever been illegal in South PBv> Africa. This has always seemed odd to me as well as there is a blood PBv> relationship between them, whereas some of the forbidden marriages would PBv> have been perfectly fine, even if the other's spouse was still alive, as PBv> long as they were divorced of course. There was never in South Africa (or in the UK) any restriction on cousins marrying, but while in the UK marriage with a deceased wife's sister or deceased husband's brother was illegal, it was never so in South Africa and there many instances of such among the Afrikaner family trees. Irene wrote: > There is nothing genetically wrong with first cousins marrying. > The old wives tales about it had no basis in science. When done once or twice, maybe, but in my Van Rensburg ancestors, the children of a Van Rensburg and a Burger, each married to a Van der Merwe sister, married as first cousins and one of their sons again married his cousin by his mother's sister: http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk/rensburg/I301.html and produced, among 12 children, one deaf, one deaf and dumb and one disabled (gebrekkelijk), so it pays to take care! All the best, Richard -- Richard Ball, Norfolk, England http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk richard.ball@ballfamilyrecords.co.uk