I Am My Own Cousin

One thing you can almost count on if your ancestors lived in the same place for 100s of years. Sooner or later their families started to intertwine through cousin marriages.

Before 1850, marrying in the family was common – on average, fourth cousins married each other, compared to seventh cousins today. ¹

My father’s paternal ancestors lived in Lancaster and Dauphin counties, his maternal ancestors in Centre and Clearfield counties. My mother’s ancestors settled in eastern Pennsylvania in Bucks, Berks, Lehigh and Montgomery counties. The earliest immigrants settled in their pieces of Pennsylvania and for the most part stayed there.

And yet, after a lot of research, I’ve determined my parents are distantly related.

They are eighth cousins twice removed, descendants of two sons of Johann Adam and Anna Katharina (Tauber) Roeder. Johann Adam Roeder Jr. married Anna Barbara Bender and settled in Rockingham County, Virginia. His great granddaughter Barbara Rader married Michael Houdeshell. Their great grandson James Benjamin Houdeshell moved from Hardy County, West Virginia to Centre County, Pennsylvania during the Civil War and married Phoebe Mayes. They became the great grandparents of my paternal grandmother.

Johann Michael Roeder, Adam Jr.’s younger brother, married Maria Susanna Zimmerman and settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. His granddaughter Catharina Nuss married Jacob Schneider. Their 2x great granddaughter Lillian Snyder was my maternal great grandmother.

This makes my maternal grandfather Russ and paternal grandmother Ruth 7th cousins twice removed and my parents 8th cousins twice removed based on the Roeder family from Mutterstadt, Germany, previously of Canton Bern, Switzerland.

This isn’t the only way they’re related. Both families can be traced back to the Landis family. I don’t know the exact relationship, but have read that Jacob Landis, my maternal Landis ancestor, was the older brother of Felix Landis, my paternal Landis ancestor. If this is true, my parents are also 8th cousins through the Landis family of Canton Zurich, Switzerland.

It is, indeed, a small world.

• Category: Commentary