German incest couple lose European Court case

[csziggy]

40. It's not necessarily a hazard for first cousins to have children together

In my genealogical research I have found numerous cases in my own family of first, second and third cousins marrying and having children together with no problems. The most recent case were first cousins who had a dozen children together. All the children were healthy and all lived to 75 or older - one lived to 98.

There is no health problems at all that could be the result of such close genetic inheritance. If anything, it seemed to reinforce traits such as longevity since the grandchildren of that union all lived into their 80s and above. The instances of such marriages are scattered geographically and genetically, though so there were not repeated unions between those of close genetic lines.

In livestock, breeders do what is called line breeding or inbreeding to set desirable traits in a bloodline. They do carefully monitor the offspring to cull those who show genetic defects but this method has been used to "improve" many lines of domestic animals. As long as there is sufficient outbreeding to bring in "fresh blood" line breeding or inbreeding can be a valuable tool for developing new strains of animals.

I am not advocating incest or recommending it, but the cultural taboo about it has created a number of myths associated with it. Marrying a first cousin is not a guarantee that the children of that marriage will have genetic problems.