How common was it for three brothers to marry three sisters?

Question

Work in Progress

My working theory now is that Anthony Hines Hines-3875 and his wife (Anna Catherine?) lived in Linn County or Howard County where three of their daughters Mary Ann (Hines-2367), Frances J(Hines-1938), and Permelia (Hines-3851) married three Cherry boys Joel L, James and Jesse.

We know they married the boys but what we don’t have proof of yet is all of them in the same household before marriage as sisters or source for the name of their mother.

Comments

I find it all the time!  Closest to me is my grandfather who had two sisters and a brother, who married siblings of another family. This same grandfather had a set of double first cousins because his father's sister was married to his mother's brother.

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All too common (for my comfort) in my ancestral lines -- proximity (same local area) and limited pool of potential to select from (small population)

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two of my great uncles married two sisters, and the sister of my great uncle, married the brother of the two sisters, so three siblings married three siblings.

Answer 1

I've found 3 siblings intermarrying in my line, but they were mixed brother/sister from each side.  It seems that for about 3 generations you find the same two families intermarrying, then they move on and intermarry with some other clan.  Moving on seems to be the key.  My US ancestors pulled up stakes every couple of generations and went farther west, where they met new families.

Answer 2

Happened in my grandmothers family... three MacRaes married three McLennons.

Answer 3

I have seen a lot of two siblings marrying two siblings from another family but not three but why not?  Especially in areas and times when there were not a lot of available matches.  In rural areas or frontier areas, there may only be three of four households within daily walking range and the sons/daughters of those 4 farms are your dating pool.

In centuries past, for many (most) people, no sex until marriage; there was certainly a strong incentive to find a match.

Comments

Really? No, to avoid claims of bastardry, many children were born prematurely. 

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Well said Marion!

A kid came 3 months early and it weighs 10 pounds. Lucky for the mom it came early...

Answer 4

It was fairly common in small towns in the south for brothers to marry sisters.  I have many cases of double cousins on both my paternal and maternal lines. These were from the early 1800's to as recent as 1915 with my grandparents where brothers married sisters.  

I  have not yet found any cases of three brothers marrying three sisters. I do have several cases though where three siblings of one family married three siblings from another family. Is there such a term as triple cousins?

Comments

The term double cousins refers to children who have two distinct first cousin relationships with the same person, one on the father's side and one on the mother's side.  I don't think there could be such a thing as triple cousins, since we only have two biological parents.  The children of those siblings could have several different sets of double cousin relationships.

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Thanks Dennis.  I didn't really think there was such a term as triple cousins. Though I did wonder if there might be some kind of term which people use to describe this situation other than double cousin.  Guess not.

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Is the term double cousin really only used for first cousin relationships?  One DNA match to my mother is related three times over (4C, 5C, and 5C1R on different lines) and I've been thinking of her as a triple cousin.  

To get back to the original question, I have a couple of double first cousin relationships in my tree, but can't think of any case where three siblings from one family married three of another.

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Well, I don't claim to be the ultimate authority on this, but I've never heard the term used for relationships other than first cousins.  Perhaps you could have double half-cousins or double step-cousins, I'm not sure.  But since we are all connected back there somewhere, I would expect that any two people could probably be related to each other in a number of different ways, and we could drive ourselves crazy trying to assign some terminology to every possible different combination.

Nevertheless, I see that if you Google the term "triple cousin" you get hits, and there are probably some of those posts that agree with your interpretation.  I didn't spend a lot of time looking at them, and can't say if any of those authors know what they're talking about.

Answer 5

Did you see the musical “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”?

Your question immediately brought that image up to me. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Brides_for_Seven_Brothers

Answer 6

I think it happened more than we think just added info for 4 sisters who married 3 brothers

Answer 7

I have 3 Garrett brothers marry 3 Dennis sisters, 2 of whom are my great x3 grandparents.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Garrett-2444

Answer 8

I have a case of 5 siblings in one family marrying 5 siblings from another family. Not uncommon at all, especially in frontier areas. Have a couple more with 3 siblings and a lot with 2.

Answer 9

Happened in my (adopted) paternal grandparents family. Several Rise boys married Fletcher girls.

Answer 10

My grandfather and his brother married sisters from the same family and the sisters had 2 other sisters who married into another family and the brothers had a sister who married into that family also

It looks like this.

Brother 1 from Family A - married Sister 1 from Family B

Brother 2 from Family A - Married Sister 2 from Family B (my grandparents)

Sister 3 from Family B Married the Uncle of Brothers 1 and 2 from Family C

Sister 4 from Family B married Brother 1 from Family C

Sister 1 from Family A Married Brother 2 from Family C