A woman in the US, who is also a TikTok content creator, recently revealed that her husband is her third cousin. She discovered the shocking fact while they were looking for names for their unborn baby, news.com.au reported.
In a video recently posted on TikTok, 42-year-old Marcella Hill told her 3,00,000 followers that she "accidentally married" her cousin, and she learned this while she was pregnant with his baby.
"So I've never told anyone publicly that I accidentally married my cousin," the Utah woman admitted in the footage, as reported by the New York Post. In the post's caption, she added, "We had no idea our Grandma and Grandpa were 1st cousins. Oops."
In the clip, she goes on to explain that she was looking at the names of her grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother when she realized something was amiss.
''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. 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," she said in the clip.
The revelation prompted Mrs Hill and her husband to call their respective grandparents to ask if they knew each other. Turns out, they did, so it means that the married couple is third cousins.
As soon as they made the discovery, the couple immediately googled if they had done something "totally unacceptable" and researched the risks of having a child with one's third cousin.
''Google reassured us with this: 'The researchers suggest marrying third and fourth cousins is so optimal for reproduction because they sort of have the "best of both worlds," Marcella Hill said, citing a Live Science story.
The couple has now accepted the bizarre news over time and even joked that there are benefits to being related. In another clip, Marcella Hill shared that their wedding was held in a local courthouse, and their grandparents weren't present at their wedding. The couple will be celebrating their 12th anniversary in March.
