Intertwining Family Trees

Proudly hailing from the South, I’ve heard a lot of jokes about family trees with no branches. I often counter those with some comment about intertwining families.

While researching genealogy I often see marriages where siblings from one family married siblings from another family. These relationships often get an odd expression (or even that “no branch” comment), especially from people who haven’t looked back at their family tree or who are unfamiliar with the large families that were the...