Get ready for a wild family mix-up that sounds like something straight out of a sitcom. Marcella Hill from Utah has just shared a jaw-dropping story on TikTok about her unexpected family connection—turns out, she accidentally married her third cousin while she was pregnant!
Marcella’s revelation has taken TikTok by storm. She decided to spill a secret she had never shared publicly before on her platform. The story begins innocently enough, with the couple searching for baby names on the genealogy site FamilySearch, hoping for some inspiration.
But what started as a quest for the perfect baby name quickly turned into an astonishing family discovery. Marcella narrated the moment of surprise: “Husband’s next to me on his own FamilySearch and he’s like, ‘Oh that’s funny, we have the same grandma and grandpa’s names’.”
Things get even more bizarre from here…
Marcella continued her story, unraveling the mix-up: “I look at this line and it’s all the same as mine. So I think, ‘Oh no no, you’re still logged into my account’.”
“Then we start looking at it and we realize my grandpa is his grandma’s first cousin.”
After calling up their grandparents, the couple confirmed they share the same great-great-grandparents. “Sure enough, sure do. They lived together when they were growing up as children,” Marcella explained about their great-grandparents.
With humor and a bit of resignation, Marcella admitted, “So I’ve never publicly told anyone but I accidentally married my cousin.”
The couple now has a unique take on family reunions—two for the price of one! This revelation quickly attracted tons of reactions online.
Commenters on TikTok couldn’t hold back their surprise, with one asking, “How didn’t y’all realize this at the wedding?”
Another chimed in with a laugh, “So in a way your baby is its own 4th cousin.”
“3rd cousins not a huge deal, you’re good. Hilarious though,” commented another viewer, finding humor in the situation.
While someone else humorously suggested, “I think you should have just not told anyone.”
And of course, there had to be a location joke: “Say you’re from Utah without saying you’re from Utah,” another teased.
In the US, the legality of marrying your second cousin is cleared in every state, but when it comes to first cousins, only about half of the states give the green light. Interestingly, Utah’s laws specify that first cousins can marry only if both parties are 65 or older, or if one of the parties cannot have children, as per district court findings.
Marcella also shared more about their low-key wedding: “We got married at a courthouse after work on a Wednesday,” and pondered what would have happened if they had discovered their relation at a bigger ceremony. “Let’s say we had the wedding, and my grandpa and his grandma were there, and we found out that we were third cousins at the wedding, what were we supposed to do?” she mused.
Indeed, what would you do? This story definitely adds a whole new layer to the meaning of ‘keeping it in the family’!