The Most Inbred Family: how Inbred are the Whittakers?

The Whittakers are known to be America's most inbred family. But are the Whittakers the most inbred family in history? In today's video, we will work out how inbred the Whittakers are? Are they among the most inbred people in history and in the world? Or are they, perhaps less inbred than some of the other historical figures known to be inbred, such as the Habsburgs, or the Ancient Egyptians.

Most of my content seems to focus on royals, royalty and those famous in history. But in today's video, we will be looking at a family more modern to those in history: the Whittakers.

Music credit:
Bensound - Sci Fi (royalty free).

[billfaint]

My grandmothers were sisters. My parents insisted that 'lots of cousins marry and have children' and dismissed any risk to their children's health as 'old wives tales'. Despite this and despite my father having three thumbs, they went ahead and had my sister. My mother admitted that within weeks she knew my sister had sight problems; she would go on to be registered as blind. Some four years later I was conceived and born. Amongst other things I have a deformed ribcage, developmental defects and mental health problems. My sister died on 16/10/2019 from bowel cancer. Being blind she didn't know that she had symptoms. Thanks Mum and Dad, you ruined two lives just because you wouldn't listen to what the family were telling you.

[mistressofthedark]

When I was 3 until I was about 5, I had a crush on my male cousin who 6 or 8, and we'd hold hands, but when I was about 5, my Momma told me about inbreeding, and what could happen in terms that I'd understand. Childhood innocence is one thing, but to commit full blown inbreeding as an adult, and know that you're doing it is just sick.

[tiffanyrawson]

Since the original boys were not only brothers, but identical twins, wouldn't that make the percentage higher? When their kids married or would be less like marrying your cousin and more like marrying your half sibling.

[dragoon]

Actually the biggest issue here isn’t that two consecutive sets of first cousins got married (that’s bad, but not enough to produce these results). No, the real problem is Henry and John were identical twins meaning their kids were genetically the equivalent of half siblings. This fast tracked the issue massively.

[redlady]

Depending on the type of twins the original fathers were, John and Gracie should actually be treated as half siblings - not cousins. The twins DNA is near 100% (you can think of this as one guy that had kids with 2 women, and then those 2 children - John and Gracie- got married). That would make their number 25%, not 12.5%.

[caroleetchen]

It's very sad the children have to suffer the lustful stupidity of their parents and relatives.

[redbrixanimations]

Me at 11 PM: “Ok one more video and I’m going to bed”
Me 3 hours later:

[irinakl]

When I was in grad school, I was volunteering in an organization, which helped people with intellectual disability and developmental delay. Met a family that came from the Kavkaz mountains region. Apparently, inbreading was completely normal and was encouraged as a tool to prevent assimilation with other relegions. So I was working with this family — the dad was mom's uncle, the brother of her father. The mom herself was a bit slow and too innocent for a 30 y.o. Their oldest son, 7 y.o. had a tiny head and his brain was lacking white matter. He was very slow, and wasn't even speaking, just repeating other words. He had vision impairment and severe emotional issues. Despite all this, they decided to have another child. Their baby girl was born with a split lip and wasn't meeting her developmental milestones by 5 months.
The father told me he does not belive in genetics and his children are like this, because his wife wasn't faithfull enough.

[Marzi]

I'm really surprised you didn't mention that because Henry and John were IDENTICAL twins, their children would, genetically, be half siblings. Not first cousins. So that boosts the family's percentage up significantly, since John and Gracie are actually half siblings. That's likely the reason for all the genetic issues. Just two generations of first cousin marriage isn't unusual and is usually fine.

[Hollylivengood]

Oh the one eye thing. When I moved to Kentucky, and enrolled my son in school, was the first time I'd ever seen anyone born with one eye and I stared. There were a few. All these kids were amazingly polite about abnormal things because they were used to it, and this was part of their culture to be polite about inbred problems. I asked one of the teachers what was why some of the kids had this, and she said, "Well he's from Gilpin Holler." Like that explained it all. It only took a year to finally learn why that was a valid explanation.

[andybearchan]

I think the implication that Timmy's father is either his grandfather or uncle, as if it was a cousin no one would have batted an eye.

[Berlynic]

Being first cousins by the fathers who were identical twins makes it much worse than if those fathers were just regular siblings. Wouldn't that make their cosanguinity higher than 18%? You didn't emphasize that.

[AnachronisticGamer]

You messed up the calculations. John and Gracie might have been first cousins, but they were genetically half-siblings because their fathers were twins. This is just like John and Gracie having the same father.

[samuellawrencesbookclub]

I must admit I was surprised by how quickly the inbreeding gets out of hand. I always thought that a single cousin-marriage was pretty harmless genetically speaking, that it didn't start to become a problem until it'd been done for a few successive generations, but the video suggests that the child of the first generation of inbreeding was already strongly affected. Regardless, it is astonishing that things were able get this bad within only two generations.

Also, I realise that this video skirts around the possibility as there is no evidence to support it, but I do wonder about what Timmy's potential inbreeding coefficient could be? If, best case scenario, he is the product of cousins, or, worst case scenario, of siblings, or parent and child.

[industrialcathedral]

I knew a friend who had cancer at a very young age and it was sad cause almost everyone in her mom's side died of various kinds of cancer. They made some genetic tests and it proved some of their ancestors came from an incestous relationship, so it made the cancer gene much stronger than it would be in a normal family with only one parent carrying that gene. :(

[SophiaF]

I can't even grasp how they manage to find others willing to have children with them at this point.

[karenchristinewise]

Identical twins are formed from a single zygote dividing into two. Identical twins are genetically the same person. The offspring of siblings marrying siblings are called double first cousins. Their parents are siblings-in-law, their parents are their aunt/uncle by marriage and blood and they cannot marry because they are considered full-siblings. I am technically a twin because my sister was born 20 minutes after me. We were conceived 2 weeks apart based on our development.

[ThatJay]

Timmy's inbreeding coefficient could've been 65.6%, 56.3%, 28.1%, or 15.6%. Timmy's mum's inbreeding coefficient is actually 31.25%, due to John and Gracie being half siblings (genetically).

[PatrickDKing]

People brought up the issue about the brothers being identical twins but there's something else that I wonder. He picked a generation to start with and assumes 0%. HOWEVER, without knowing the family history PRIOR to the selected "first generation" we can't possibly know the starting genetic inbreeding. In all likelyhood there was already generations before that with higher inbreeding.

[jazzyj.]

HE BROKE DOWN THE FAMILY TREE & I STILL COULDN'T KEEP UP