On Saturday I pointed out the indignity of giving little Elizabeth HARDWICK an illegitimate child when she was just ten years old. I will put this right, tomorrow perhaps. Something else on the FamilySearch Shared Tree caught my eye.

Elizabeth and her four siblings are two great grandparents short and (offscreen) four 2 times great grandparents. Paternal grandmother Ann FAWCETT and maternal grandfather John FAWCETT are brother and sister.

This sort of thing is to be expected, otherwise we would have more many times great grandparents than there were living people twenty or thirty generations back. It happened more often among royalty – or in small, isolated communities – and usually further back in time than this instance.

Abstract 68 · Sandscape