Everyone is talking about their roots thanks to at-home DNA testing kits like Ancestry and 23andMe. The commercials make it seem whimsical and mysterious — like you could be related to someone who made a significant medical advancement or maybe invented the muffin.
There are so many things to discover, and people are chomping at the bit to learn more about their family trees. But what if you found out those branches were a bit too close?
TikToker Marcella Hill, @beingmarcellahill, stunned her nearly 300,000 followers when she announced that she is married to her cousin. No, the couple didn't know they were cousins when they got married, but now they do, and they have a baby. It's a crazy story, and people don't know what to think.
Hill was pregnant and searching for baby names.
Hill and her husband were expecting a baby, and she was hunting for a baby name. Naming your baby after a family member is a great way to honor them, so Hill was on "Family Search" looking for names. She started rattling off names to her husband, and he was like, "Oh that's funny, we have the same grandma's and grandpa's names," she explains in the TikTok.
Hill looked over at her husband's screen and told him he must still be logged into her account because the ancestors were the same people.
They put two and two together and were shook!
The couple analyzed the family tree and realized that their grandparents were related. And it wasn't a distant relationship: her grandpa and his grandma are first cousins. They immediately got on the phone with their grands and asked if they knew each other.
"Sure enough, sure do," Hill says.
Not only were the grandparents cousins, but they were also close. They actually lived together as kids. She announces that she and her husband are third cousins.
"We have won a prize for being the closest related in a neighborhood activity," she says.
Not everyone was laughing.
Plenty of people on TikTok felt like this family secret should have stayed in the vault.
"Things you shouldn't tell anyone ," someone suggested.
"If they still required blood tests before you got married you might have found out beforehand ," a TikToker pointed out.
"Couldn't of tortured this out of me ," another agreed.
Others were very familiar with the scenario.
Lots of family trees share roots, and people don't think it's a big deal.
"Totally fine," one person wrote. "You realize that, for most of human history, people lived in small close-knit communities and spouses were often distantly related."
Another TikToker told a wild story: "My baby daddy hooked up with his sister, got her pregnant and now their engaged … I don't think it's a accident on their end "
"Don't feel bad darling," someone empathized. "My husband's grandfather and my great grandmother were siblings. Yes, I knew going into the relationship."
There is a million-dollar question …
"Did your grandparents not come to your wedding or any other family events before you were married?" someone asked.
That's the kicker. In a follow-up, Hill explains that there was no big wedding. They got married at a courthouse after work one day. She even shows a picture of them by a copy machine.
She poses a question of her own: "Still, let's say that we had the wedding and my grandpa and his grandma were there and we found out we were third cousins, at the wedding, what were we supposed to do?"
Hill is a funny lady with a story to tell. She doesn't just talk about marrying her cousin. She has 3.5 million likes on her videos that are a wealth of knowledge about women's health issues, particularly getting older and working through the body's changes during menopause.
Some may call her a bit of an oversharer, but a lot of people are listening and coming back for more.
