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Is inbreeding common in West Virginia?

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He concluded that "inbreeding levels in Appalachia … [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region, when compared with those reported for populations elsewhere or at earlier periods in American history. read more

It was common in many places not just West Virginia. A century ago people often married their first cousin. Albert Einstein married his first cousin too. As people got modernized the practice stopped. But since West Virginia was very rural the practice stoped a little later. read more

West Virginians became the prototypical "hillbillies," and incest served as a crude "scientific" explanation for their downtrodden social condition. In more recent memory, the 2003 film Wrong Turn helped perpetuate the inbreeding stereotype. Set in West Virginia, it features cannibalistic mountain men, horribly disfigured from generations of incest. read more

The biggest problem with inbreeding is that when close relatives choose to mate, it results in homozygosity, which can increase their offspring's chances of being affected by deleterious recessive traits for all kinds of physical and cognitive disabilities, including ailments like hemophilia and cystic fibrosis as well as deformities like the Habsburg jaw. read more

Exaggeration-prone outsiders. In the 1880s and 1890s, writers such as Mary Noailles Murfree and John Fox Jr. traveled across Appalachia, looking for "local color," and overstated the degree to which mountain populations lived in isolation. read more

According to one paper (Jaber et al, Community Genetics, 1998), congenital malformations are 2.5 times more common among offspring of inbred couples than of unrelated parents. A famous example is the “blue Fugates,” members of an inbred Kentucky hill clan who suffered from a rare genetic blood disorder that made their skin look blue. read more

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