Breeding with a 1st cousin does not increase the chances of genetic disorders all that much. It would if you kept doing it over and over again through several generations. Having said that, I had a Jewish girlfriend whose parents were first cousins. She had a brother that died by age 2 of a genetic digestive disorder.
By the way, the state with the strictest incest laws? Kentucky. The loosest? New York.
My wife comes from the hollers of Kentucky. Yikes, she's related to just about everyone in the county by one way of figurin' or another. However, they generally discourage cousins from pairing up.
True story: so there were these two distant relatives of hers that got engaged. When the MIL's got together the night before the wedding they got to talking and realized both the bride and the groom shared the same biological father. Oooops. The couple decided to go through with the marriage anyway. Shortly thereafter, the newlyweds announced she was preggers and the whole county had a conniption.
They all breathed a sigh of relief when they revealed the groom wasn't the father.
True Story #2: I'd been dating KYHillChick for a very short time. One Sunday afternoon we were making smalltalk and she mentioned her mother's maiden name.
"Funny," I said. "That's the same as my mother's!" It took a second or two to realize what I'd said. I made a very quick call to my mother, the family genealogist. She had every relative nailed down on that side except for one uncle of my Great-Great Grandfather who didn't come back from the Civil War. He didn't die. He just never wanted to come home. His whereabouts were unknown. Whew!
