A large British longitudinal study (n=13727) confirms that children of first cousin marriage have higher rates of mortality, morbidity, and intellectual and developmental disability. Mortality, morbidity and educational outcomes in children of consanguineous parents in the Born in Bradford cohort
It was a a larger effect than I expected. For some reason I thought that first-cousin marriage had a consistent but mild deleterious effect cross-culturally.
I have one of those in my ancestry, in the 1800s in Nova Scotia among the Spinneys. It seems we got over it.
3 comments:
Yep, those are pretty noticeable effects.
Doesn't it also matter whether the first-cousin marriage is a one-off where there aren't lots of other shared ancestors or a common cultural practice where the cousins are just the latest set of cousins to marry in a long line of cousins marrying?
The article mentions that.
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