That depends on what is endogamy. In his video on the subject, History Fanatics defines that term too loosely, and he really didn't want input from us that you're being too vague and throwing several things under the same definitiion, and leaving out some things entirely . I do suspect that a key source of this problem is the excessive use of jargon. Usually using the word endogamy is not at all helpful. I have never seen the term fail to contribute more confusion than understanding. The word endogamy could actually be Greek for all the practical conveyance of specific meaning it usually does. Instead of throwing around terms like endogamy, genealogists, family historians, anthropologists and historians need to simply clearly state in that case what specifically happened. In each of my examples below, some of which are endogamy and some of them the above blogger only says they are, you end up understanding exactly what happened without the word endogamy being used even once. In my direct experience, inbreeding, where people are descended from the same ancestors more than once, and in some populations descended from the same people 9 times isn't uncommon, does increase the chances that descendants of shared ancestors in the early 17th century will have matching DNA. My Gardners and my Raymonds are my favote example, both early Massachusetts settlers. The problem where an entire population is so either closely or distantly inbred it's actually impossible to pin down where the DNA came from is something I've run into just twice. One is a situation we've heard stereotypes about, but doubted it actually happened in real life. A town full of extremely inbred people. A guy, a member of the Dehart DNA project at Family Tree DNA that I administer, was from a small Appalachian community and wanted to know which Dehart was his great grandfather. He descended from the same Dehart 3x great grandparents who settled of that place six times, and that was true of most of his other ancestors as well. I couldn't sort out who was his great grandfather. The other is Swiss Germans in northern Baden Wurttemburg and Rhineland-Pfalz, they just all seem to carry the same small DNA segment, and it can't be pinned to a family. A lot of very different families with traceably unrelated histories who came through that area carry that segment. It's very frustrating. I wuld dearly love to know if its roots are Celtic, or Germanic, or perhaps just Swiss Mennonite... This DNA segment is confined to that region, which didn't change demographically between the 5th century and the 16th. So, like, when I see it, or by this time when I see certain surnames, well, maybe they're descended from my Burkharts, or maybe they're descended from my Weiss 3x great grandfather who was born on the Swiss=German border, or maybe they descend from his wife, who came from some place in Baden-Wurttenburg and that could account for the large number of matches I have from the Kreichgau and adjacent Rhineland-Pfalz (narrow strip of land across the river), but, see here, my father has four ancestors who lived in the Kreichgau plus the famlies in Rhineland-Pfalz who share their DNA segments... I have a LOT of matches with ancestors who lived in and near the Kreichgau I can't make a traceable connection with their pedigrees. Now, you do have to realize that most people from the Kreichgau and neighboring regions came to teh U.S. between 1720 and 1850, and most of my genetic connections in New England connect at ancestors who were born between 1570 and 1630. And those people share 10 to 55 cM segments with me, not 6 cM segments. In New England the biggest problem is that everyone with old New England ancestry shares a dozen or so ancestors. New England DNA can usually be pinned to an emigrant family, it just takes tracing a lot of trees until you whittle down the families connected to your DNA segment to just one. I have only one case where due to constant intermarriages between descendants of a group of families, I only have it whittled down to a couple of families. One of them probably but not necessarily accounts for the DNA, I just have no apparent way so far to discern which one. The two families did occasionally directly marry each other, and it is possible some people have a segment that consists of DNA from both families. DNA matches who descend from just one of the two families may exist, but I have yet to find any. I have just one group of families where I've not made any effort to pin down the DNA, though experience suggests it's more than likely Gardner. My great grandmother descended from her Raymond great grandparents three times due to first cousin marriages. Her Raymond great grandparents belonged to a group of famlies that had married each other for generations; Raymond, Davis, Hubbard and Rice. William Raymond and Mercy Davis descended from each of these families just once. But my DNA matches are full of people who descend from all four families. I mark them as Raymond Davis Hubbard Rice. There just doesn't seem to be a point to trying to pin down that DNA. My experience with semi-old DNA suggests that probably that DNA combined into hard and fast segments composed of DNA from all four families and then that got passed down. The segments wouldn't track further than this group of families. That is probably a microexample of what happens in true endogamy, where a number of people intermarried constantly and their DNA blended so now the descendants of an entire population all carry it. The way he defined endogamy, it should be the two examples where an entire population literally carry the same DNA segments and it is not possible to use DNA to sort out lineages in a family tree,, but I believe the example he used is Old New England, where people often share multiple ancestors, but someone with time and patience can perfectly sort out which DNA segments came from which families! And he confused endogamy with pedigree collapse, which applies to Old New England pedigrees. I descend from entire blocks of my ancestry more than once. No wonder people here seem very confused on what is endogmany. In Mormon territory, which is'nt teh same thing as Utah, you can easily run into problems with peoples' actual ancestors not being the ones documented on paper, and unless famly history has been passed down on who were the actual parents, which frequently does exist, there is simply no way to sort it out. Genetic information is useless without good trees to know what is what. It doesn't take actual endogamy to end up confused and unable to trace lineages. It didn't always happen. My Cloward-Pluck DNA lineages, though high caste Mormons who were personally close to the Prophet, somehow just didn't do a lot of plural marriages.

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge.

The time period you are talking about was just when polygamy was starting to be taught semi-openly. Because of this, there were lots of arrangements. One good thing that you mentioned is the LDS church was very good at keeping records, so if Rebecca doesn't show up later in Utah, she likely stayed in IL. Another thing to bear in mind is that divorce was allowed (and in many respects a lot easier to gain a divorce in the LDS polygamist society). However, throughout the US we can see examples of divorced women claiming to be widows. Probably due to stigma. If George had left for Utah with his other wife, and she didn't go because they had a "divorce" (basically a mutual agreement to part ways without involving the law), then she might claim later to be widowed and avoid any stigma from being divorced (afterall, he was no longer around and it was unlikely he would be returning).

You're analogy makes a lot of sense. Let me correct one term - it isn't necessarily Mormon endogamy rather that tree collapse. Most pioneer communities (regardless of religious affiliations) will have this happen with early settlers because there aren't many people to marry and propagate the population with. So, yes, early LDS church tree collapse is a thing.

Thanks for sharing how your ancestor has multiple partners and how it impacts your DNA

Susan, I've gotten a taste of what you are dealing with while helping a half second cousin attempt to cut through the Gordian knot that is his maternal side from Louisiana, some being French, some not. Wow, is it a mess. But be aware that the fact that your male ancestor had children by two wives does not in any way make you related to both wives. You may well be related to both for other reasons, however. If you are descended from a child of wife A AND from a child of wife B, that would make both wives your ancestors, though from what you say, it doesn't sound like that is the case. If you are descended only from wife A (whether she is first or second is irrelevant; hence my saying "wife A" rather than "wife 1",) but wife B is related to either wife A OR to your male ancestor, that would make wife B also related to you. But if none of those cases hold true, then you are not related to wife B, only to her children, who are then half uncles or aunts, with their descendants being your half cousins.

There isn't exaclty a name for a descendant that generated numerous half-relationships for persons. It's not exactly the same as tree collapse or endogamy but has similar challenges to be sure.

That is the dream to be sure. However, genetic testing alone won't solve the problem. We have to add genealogical records. And that requires more human participation. Since genealogy isn't that popular, I don't know when that will happen. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d8ddo5iH1LfZpX0.html

Awesome!

That's terrific.

Glad you liked this video.

I am not aware of any affect on your line. Since you are likely related to each match through a particular line, if you don't have pedigree collapse but a match does, it is likely on a line that you are not related through.

That happened to me, too. One branch of my tree is old order Mennonite, and I doubt they will be taking DNA tests any time soon! So I basically have zero matches on that branch.

I'm sorry that you're running into this obstacle to genetic genealogy. I didn't know that religion played a role in abstaining from the testing. I know fear of what someone will do with the results does. That's a first for me.

I placed the link in the description box. But here's the playlist kzfaq.info/sun/PLcVx-GSCjcdm9FKEWYkGhtOMIZjfAhVgP

That is correct. A lot of 1/2 relatives to be sure.

But I've also interacted with a clustering expert who specializes in endogamy. Interestingly the way the matrix lays out for polygamy looks a lot like endogamy - because in both cases - everybody is related to each other somehow with super huge clusters - just that endogamy is more diffuse.

Howdy Cousin! I didn't go back a generation so I didn't highlight that previous generations likely have even more matches. Trying to keep things simple here.

Maybe. The problem comes with extrapolating averages to actual people. It may be that the Cloward descendants you are looking at happened by chance to have passed down the same segments. While another Cloward family did not (you wouldn't know because they never show up on your list).

I bet.

Add in some adoptions, NPEs, and ancestors with names like Smith and Jones for a blast...

Might be bogus, like all the people Ancestry reckons were born or died in the vicinity of Sulawesi, Indonesia, when such a thing couldn't possibly have occurred.

Related by marriage, yes. But that is the same as saying that I am related to my brother's wife. Usually, with genealogy relationships, we are concerned with blood relatives (the old term before genetics was known).

I have found that if they had children, then the children are half cousins with the father being the same. That how they are 2-4th or 3-5th cousins?

Wow. Yes, documented polygamy helps sorting the branches easier. Illegitimate relationships are a challenge when a man was prolific.

Multiple partners isn't only polygamy. But you're not alone in having more than one in your family tree.

You're absolutely right. That's why I didn't label the video "How polygamists complicate DNA results", but rather a person with multiple partners. I have polygamists in my family tree and that's why I shared what I have access to. However, there are many viewers who have expressed that they have situations similar to yours and how it can make things challenging but interesting.