Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-12-24

The New York World publishes curious list ofpe
cuAar rehtiohsnipsb by the custom Of protracted In
eefma1rfagee In families prevalent among the In
haoftants Of the land lying between the Delaware
ana the Chesapeake bayR The most striking
example is furnished by respectable family Of
farmers. bearing the old name OF Smith, living
near Barnards Wharf, on the road leading to Cam
bridge. The present head OF the family, Mark
Smith, Is the father Of half dozen OF boys
Marx Smith, his father, Jonathan Smith,
who came from England and Mark Smiths
Sous Tedr1ck and Samuel, all married sisters.
me women were the daughters Of George Hul1but,
smiths wife died ten years ago, leaving no chill
dren: Mark then married his fathers widow.
Sns had been his fathers second wife, and was
Wluiam l. T1lghman. After she had borne Smith
q child he was divorced from her, whereupon she
wife. She has had child by Hurlbut. To further
compi1cate matters, Samuel Smiths wife died and
ne married Iilghman's sister, who was a sister to
Tedrlck Smiths son, Jonathan, married the daug-
ter that his grandfather's second wife had prevf-
o9sy borne nl by William L Mighman. wasthere
the Du Pont de Nemour's family is another
curiosity. The family, OF Huguenot extraction,
generations. Collectively the Du Point de Ne
mours family owns $50 OOO, 600 worth Of property.
Much OF these vast possessions are held In CON-
mon, ana upon the death Of q member what he
USED as his share is divided up among the rest.
In marriage, as well as in money -making, the Du
POhCS are q close corporation. Rarely have they
ever gone further away from the blood than q
cousin for wife, and the Du Point strain is as pure
as mat OF Kentucky thoroughbred. 1t would
take profound thought on the part of 4 skilled
genealOg1St TO figure out the exact relations that
the present generation OF Du Points bear to one
another
The Dashiell family and the Handy family and
the Jones family, in Somerset county, Md, are SO
mixed up that their family trees are absolutely in
dec1pherable. All three families are socially dis
tngulShed and have contributed many men OF
of the Jones and Dashiell families are more mixed
than the Handys. There is one OF the Dashiells q
lawyer, who is his own first cousin as well as his
own DrOther-in-law. Another of the DashiellS is
his fathers half brother while another is his wife's
brother-in-law. One OF the youthful scions of the
house OF Jones, who lives in Baltimore, has been
inquired out to be his own father. The advantage
o. being ones own father will be Immediately ap-
parent to every reader.
Living near Beaver Dam, or, as it is called now,
ingleesde IN Queen Anne county, Nd, are two
Drothers, Thomas George Roberts and Charles Wise
ROBERTS They came from the state Of Ohio, where
each had married sisters These sisters were first
cousins TO the father OF the Roberts boys, and
their mother had been divorced from the elder
Roberts. She had her daughters by Roberts first
was cousin to Roberts mother. The mother
OF the wives OF the Roberts boys was a STEP
mOCner 10 Cne boys, and their own mother was
also Cnelr fathers cousin. In this case, the elder
RoDertS was not only father-in-law to his sons
wives, DuJ ne was also their uncle and their step.
rather. Their own mother was also their own
COUSIN, and they are cousins as well as sisters
eacn other. These people are bound together
almost as unanimously and multttudinOuSly as
Mark Smith and his sons, and the marvel is that
than the first cousin, although In many instances
the relationship appears to be much closer.