I am still working on my mother's family tree, and while I knew that at one point my father's family tree crossed my mother's family tree, I never realized that there was double link within Mom's family.
As I was able to go further and further back on my mother's side of the family, I located where the two families first intersected. At the juncture of the two lineages, Edward Starbuck is my 4th great grandfather. His wife, Damaris Worth, is my 4th great grandmother. From there, the two family lines diverged until 1938, when my father and mother married, bringing them back together. Which means that my brother is not only my brother, but my first cousin 3 times removed.
And then I found out that my 8th great grandfather, Tristram Coffin and his wife Dionis Stephens Coffin, were the parents to James Coffin and to Mary Coffin. Mary Coffin married Nathaniel Starbuck SR and their son, Nathaniel Starbuck JR married Dinah Coffin. James Coffin married Mary Severance and their daughter Dinah Coffin married
Nathaniel Starbuck. Therefore, Tristram's grandson James married Tristram's granddaughter by Mary. What a convoluted turn things took back then!!
Before going "Ewwwww!" let's remember something; I know the Starbucks and
Coffins were land owners back them; nice size holdings. Keeping the land in the family was important for the female descendants since the wife's property automatically, by law, became that of her husband. So remarrying back in to the family - or in the above case, families, kept the land within the families. They were separated by 2 generations, after all. And white population of Nantucket Island back then was dismally small.
Something I just learned the other day says that Nantucket Island was originally a part of New York colony, not Massachusetts. Hmmmm. Not that this has anything to do with family lineages. But it is an interesting piece of colonial history.
Isn't it interesting what doing family genealogy can reveal!
