Genealogy is not about working within the framework of laws.  It is about recording blood lines and family history, created within and without the legal framework.  This is not “redefining marriage”, but rather just recording who was born outside the legal marriage, but within a certain blood line. When conducting genealogical research, intellectual integrity demands that all known descendants, legitimate and illegitimate, be recorded.  If a child is born outside marriage, the “side families”, as half-siblings,  are just as related to us, as a half sibling born within a marriage.  They share the same DNA we inherited from that one parent. Descendants of these children have just as much right to know where they came from as descendants of children born within the legal marriage do.

  I guess I also believe in dealing with reality.  Why pretend the "side families" don't exist? Isn’t it bad enough that so many of our ancestors had children outside of marriage,  knowing that their own flesh and blood would not be acknowledged, would be excluded from society, not able to share in the family wealth, and legally treated as persona non? [not human beings].  The men who fathered these children don’t seem to have paid any price for their deliberate actions, but the children paid.   I don’t feel the least bit responsible for what my ancestors did, but do feel responsible for I how treat relatives who contact me saying they believe we are related, though from “the other side of the blanket”.   I fail to see how it hurts me in any way to acknowledge them, or what good comes from pretending the other relatives don’t exist. I think they’ve paid enough for that which they are not even responsible and would rather help these branches, previously persona non, find and prove
 their roots.

  On the original topic: I have heard that there was a Biblical admonition in the Old Testament, which required men to look after the wives of their deceased brothers. This was interrupted, by some churchmen, as meaning they *should*  marry their brother’s widow.  I did look this passage up once, and found it, but can’t remember where I found it.  But perhaps the idea of marrying a deceased wife's sister was based on the same idea; taking care of a defendeless [unmarried] relative.

  This was not any form of incest, which is defined in both canon law and civil law as a relationship in the direct descent, such as grandfather/father/and son or daughter, or brother/sister.   People even married the child of a step parent, if there was no blood relation [as when the step parent had a child from a previous marriage, with no blood connection to the new husband]. Only in the late 19th century, when some scientific studies appeared showing conditions such as insanity might be caused by close intermarriage, did the law forbid marriage between relatives, such as 1st cousins, or Uncle/niece.  [Insanity was found later not to be caused by cousins marrying] These relationships, including marrying the spouse of a deceased sibling, were never considered incest in common law, or in church cannon law.  Some denominations and law makers  might later have objected, but probably based on "bad science", or changing societal attitudes.

  Langdon Hagen-Long


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