Feick and Schwebel, Schwebel and Feick

My hubby's grandfather was a Feick and his grandmother was a Schwebel. Both families have been in the Groß-Bieberau area for centuries and seeing that it is really not so large an area (4,500 population of Groß-Bieberau today) it is inevitable that Feicks and Schwebels should intermarry....repeated times. The first instance, I discovered this was while researching hubby's 3rd great grandfather, Johan Wilhelm Schwebel 1777-1866. who married Elisabeth Margaretha Feick 1781-1840. Elisabeth was already listed in the family tree as a fourth great aunt and now she is also a third great grandmother! There are many Feicks marrying Schwebels. In fact many other surnames I find popping up over and over. It boggles the mind to think how many possible inter marriages there are. That's why Walter Feick is not only my husband's father but he is also my husband's

fourth cousin twice removed
fifth cousin
sixth cousin once removed
sixth cousin twice removed X2
seventh cousin X2
seventh cousin once removed X4
seventh cousin twice removed
seventh cousin three times removed X2
and on and on and on up to twelfth cousin and would be more but Groß-Bieberau didn't have church records before that time.

This is the story however all over Medieval Europe when the population was small and people just didn't have the opportunity to move about as much as today. On the positive side I never noticed any family members who looked like the kid in Deliverence (do we hear banjos playing?).

H.G.Wells, Albert Einstein, Edgar Allen Poe, and most of the royalty of Europe married their cousins so I guess we are in good company. Besides, anthropologists believe that everyone on earth is at most our 40th cousin. Oh well. It makes the family tree rather confusing at times though doesn't it?

a Feick by marriage only (although my Scandinavian ancestors dallied with their kin also),