- After Celina and Joey fell madly in love, passers-by would comment on how similar they looked
- At their wedding, they realised even their grandmothers looked alike
- When Celina got a deal on a DNA test, she was looking forward to doing her family tree
- But the couple got a shock when it revealed they were related!
- Here, Celina Quinones, 38, shares her story with Take 5…
My date, Joseph, 28, held up a bowling ball and grinned at me.
“If I knock down a pin, will you give me a kiss?” he asked.
“Sure,” I laughed, admiring his confidence.
It was 2006, I was 21 and my best friend had arranged a double date with me and Joseph, who was her boyfriend’s brother.
They were sure we’d make a good pair. I was delighted when Joseph, or Joey as I’d come to call him, knocked down three pins.
“Come here,” I laughed, laying a smooch on him.
Kissing Joey felt very natural and from that night on we were a couple.
Read more: I married a man with half a face
“You guys look like each other”
The more we got to know each other, the more similarities we discovered.
So too, did other people who saw us out together.
“You guys look like each other,” friends and passers-by alike would say.
“All the great couples do,” was my standard response.
I couldn’t put my finger on Joey’s ethnicity, which I liked, because mine was similarly ambiguous.
“What’s your heritage?” I asked him one day.
“Puerto Rican,” he replied. “What are you?”
“My parents say I’ve got European and Indigenous blood,” I told him. “But some day I want to do a proper family tree.”
Just four months later, Joey and I were going for a stroll by the lake when he got down on one knee.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, beaming.
We married in July 2006.
My side of the family hadn’t met his, but they all got on famously.
Our grandmothers, Stella and Lupe, rolled their wheelchairs up to each other and chatted for hours.
“My grandma looks like she’s from your side,” I remarked to Joey. “She’s got your nose!”
Two years into marriage, we had our first child, Joseph Jr, then in 2009, our son Jacob came along, followed by a daughter, Jolina, in 2013.
As our kids grew, it was hard to say if they looked more like Joey’s side of the family or mine.
It’s time to do that family tree, I thought one day.
After 10 years of marriage, I got a two-for-one deal for a website which allows you to trace your genetic make-up through DNA.
Joey and I swabbed saliva from our mouths and sent it off for analysis.
I was home alone when the results arrived, showing that I had a high percentage of Puerto Rican blood!
Becoming concerned, I entered my results into an ancestry website which brought up a family tree.
Sick to my stomach
At a quick glance I noticed a large number of people with Joey’s mum’s maiden name, Herrera.
Scrolling across the tree, my eyes fell upon the profile of my husband – but we weren’t only connected through marriage!
I felt sick in my stomach and immediately sent a screenshot to Joey.
Babe, we have a problem, I messaged him. My dad and your mum are cousins!
Joey called right away.
“Are we sure we’re meant to be together?” I asked.
“We’ve been married for a decade,” he replied. “And we’ve got three kids; we’re not giving up now.”
I agreed with him, but no longer wanted to continue my family tree project.
“Why didn’t you tell me I’m related to Joey?” I asked my dad, Mark.
“You’re not!” he insisted. “I’ll do a DNA test, too, and prove it.”
When his results came back, it confirmed the relation, but Dad was still shocked.
“My grandmother was always very secretive about her identity,” he admitted.
He said she had been a doctor in a time when women healers were persecuted and may have concealed her true name for this reason.
Love conquers all
It was strange to think of my husband as a second cousin, but he was still the man I loved.
“You’re my cous-band,” I joked.
We’d watched so many of our friends’ marriages end bitterly, and we were determined that wouldn’t be us.
I decided not to hide the truth but to use our unique relationship as proof that love really can conquer all.
Thankfully, our kids were unfazed when we told them.
Yes! In Australia and New Zealand, marriage laws regarding blood relations allow you to marry your first cousin.
Can you marry your cousin in Australia?
“And at least you’ve got all your fingers and toes,” Joey joked.
Backlash
In 2020, I posted about our story on TikTok in the hope of encouraging other couples going through challenges.
The video went viral, getting over two million views and a lot of negative backlash.
This is disgusting! one person wrote. You should get a divorce.
Such comments were upsetting, but there were also lots of people who sympathised.
You obviously didn’t know and fell in love, it’s okay, one wrote.
Our story also spread in our local community.
“Why do people care so much?” Jolina, 10, asked one day, after hearing talk about it at her school.
“I don’t know, honey,” I reassured her. “We’re just an ordinary family.”
Last year, I told some of my story in my book, The Dream Catcher’s Keeper, in which I encouraged people to tend their garden rather than wondering if the grass is greener someplace else.
There’s a Puerto Rican saying which I plan to use as the title of my next book, a la prima se le arrima.
It means, I’m very close with my cousin.
And that’s certainly the case with Joey and me!
If we’d known we were related, we would never have got married. But I love my wife and kids, and wouldn’t have it any other way. Celina and I have had many hurdles to jump in our marriage, and shared DNA is just one more.
Joseph, 45
