A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:So, i have this third cousin. Hes my grandpas, brothers, daughters, son. He just told me hes in love with me. We met last summer, and we didnt know we were realted. And we both gained feelings for eachother. I love him, he loves me. But we're family. Are third cousins blood related? Like is this okay? .. I dont know what to do.. at all :( Help me ?
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male
reader, Linton  +, writes (1 September 2011):
Sorry. In that reference I said volume 329. It should have been 219.
A
male
reader, Linton +, writes (4 August 2011):
Well, yes. And that is a good thing. Firs a minority view. There was an article, I think in Nature magazine entitled "An advantage of promescuity." What they found was that primates (lemurs, monkeys, apes, humans) come with two social norms. Some are very faithful while some are promiscuous. The promiscuous ones have very strong immune systems, the faithful have weak ones, and that includes humans. The title suggests that this shows an advantage of promescuity. That is ironic. It's obvously better from a biological standpoint not to need a stong one. At all events the lesson for humans is: nature expects you to mate for life. So I will go with biology and say "marry" where one might say, "Have sex with."
I do not give advice; I've made far too manny mistakes to take myself seriously. Nor do I judge; I've seen far too much bad stuff. That said, there was a study done in Iceland. (An Association Between Kinship And Fertility of Human Couples. Agnar Heigason, Snaebjoern Palsson, Daniel F. Guobjartsson, Pordur Kristjansson and Karl Stefanson, SCIENCE vol 329 8 February 2008 page 813) You can buy it by going to ScienceMag. They had a slightly different way of rating degree of kinship, but using their method they found that a couple will have a maximum number of children if they are second cousins or closer. However there is a catch. That does not produce the maximum number of grandchildren. Maximum grandchildren are produced if third cousin or closer or fourth cousin or closer marry. Keep me honest, but that seems to me to say that third cousin or closer is ideal. And closer OR ANY LESS CLOSE and you will have fewer grandchildren. By the time kinship is out to fifth or sixth cousin you can expect to have fewer than two. It then levels off so that marrying a tenth cousin is tantamount to marrying somebody from the far side of the world; the penalty is the same.
There are any number of things you might consider marrying, but biologically speaking if it is not a human of the opposite sex you are accomplishing nothing. You will find there are people who are hostile to marrying third cousins, but the biology is clear. Failing to marry a cousin reduces your chance of children and the chance your children will have children.
I rant on at length on my web site nobabies.net. But the bottom line is clear. Society has sold us a bill of goods. Marrying strangers, again I mean this from a biological perspective, reduces fertilty. Do you know somebody who is haveing trouble having children? There are many possible causes, but mate choice is the big one. It is a miracle we have made it this far.
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A
male
reader, C. Grant +, writes (15 June 2011):
 Not that it's terribly important, but you might enjoy this link:
http://www.genealogy.com/16_cousn.html
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (15 June 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionhe isnt my second cousin, his mother is my second cousin, becaue shes my dads cousin.. therefore her son is my third cousin, third generation. and we're not close.. our families dont live near eachother, and our parents dont really talk.
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A
male
reader, C. Grant +, writes (15 June 2011):
Actually he's your second cousin, and yes, you are blood related. But the relationship is distant enough that legally and genetically there's nothing to worry about. The only real issue is if your family is likely to have a problem with it. Talk to one of your parents and get a sense of whether the relationship is one the family can deal with.
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A
female
reader, Orbiter  +, writes (15 June 2011):
Third cousins are related but very distantly. I think most countries allow a relationship between 3rd cousins but you would have to check that out for yourself just to be sure.
Also I'm not sure how close or distant your families are but have a think about how everyone would take the news.
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