I have a query about marriages in 18th-century Virgina, but first I should provide some context for it: BACKGROUND Last week I read Lorri Glover’s All Our Relations: Blood Ties and Emotional Bonds Among the Early South Carolina Gentry (Johns Hopkins University Press) in which the author demonstrates the importance of extended family ties in 18th-century South Carolina. Her findings have obvious parallels to colonial Virginia (indeed Glover quotes Benjamin Latrobe and others about the frequency of marriages between cousins in Virginia). and she refers extensively to relevant Chesapeake scholarship such as Darrett and Anita Rutman’s “’Now-Wives’ and ‘Sons-in-Law’” article, their Place In Time volumes, Kulikoff’s Tobacco and Slaves, etc. etc. Glover’s main point prods social historians to look beyond the conjugal nuclear family unit and to recognize the importance of extended kin networks. Its well written and richly documented – and no doubt some enterprising grad student will soon test its theses in Virginia sources, etc etc. One aspect of her main thesis is the general question of marriage or re-marriage between members of extended and often inter-connection family networks – and she has some fascinating comparative information about blood-proximity of marriage not only in South Carolina but in England, New England and elsewhere. QUERY In connection with some current research about one family, I’ve been wondering about other instances in which a widower or widow remarries the sister or brother (or step-sister or step-brother) of the deceased spouse. Was it common? My impression (based on 30 years of rummaging in Virginia history) is that in the 18th- and 19th centuries (when mortality rates were much higher than today, especially from child-birth) instances of re-marriage to a surviving sibling or step-sibling was not uncommon. I don’t want to clutter everyone’s in-boxes, but I would be interested in off-list postings of specific instances in 18th-century Virginia of marriages in which a widow or widower marries a surviving sibling or step-sibling of his/her deceased spouse. Off-list posts can be directed to “[log in to unmask] THANK YOU! PS I’d be grateful if some eligible VA-HIST subscriber cared to cross-post this message to VA-ROOTS. Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial 1250 Red Hill Road Brookneal, Virginia 24528 www.redhill.org To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html