Bicycling to a date

I read

La bicyclette a contribué à renforcer la diversité génétique chez les travailleurs ruraux, en triplant leur rayon d'action en matière de recherche de partenaires durant leur jour de repos hebdomadaire. Ceci fut un facteur de réduction de la consanguinité en milieu rural.

I translate:

The bicycle has helped to strengthen the genetic diversity among rural workers, triplingtheir range in search of partners during their weekly day of rest. This was a factor in reducing inbreeding in rural areas.

... therefore I think!

Quebecers are almost all cousins, but most of them do not even know it. They will have to do an extensive genealogical research to find the ancestor they have in common. Often they will find a very distant ancestor, one which could cause very little risk to the offspring of two "pure laine" Quebecers (Quebec-born) who would have fallen in love.

Until recently, 95% of all people from Québec had at least one common ancestor. This was mainly true in the region of Charlevoix, Saguenay and Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Gaspésie). The French colonists who came New France (Canada) were mainly from Paris, Île-de-France and the French provinces of Aunis, Brittany, Normandy, Picardy, Poitou and Saintonge, while settlers of Acadia were populated mainly from the provinces of Anjou, Maine and Touraine. In addition, the "Filles du Roi" were from Ile-de-France, the provinces with the largest contribution to this movement were Normandy, Aunis, Poitou, Champagne, Picardy, Orléans, and Beauce. Only Alsace, Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Dauphine, Provence, Languedoc, Roussillon, Béarn, Gascony and the County of Foix seem not to have participated. Pleasance or the colony of Newfoundland were founded by the Basques in south-western France. Louisiana and North Bay were mainly populated by settlers already established in New France.

So I had to go back way back in time to continue ...

Close inbreeding has remained very rare in the Quebec of the past, even though husband and wife were often from the same parish.

In fact, marriage between cousins was discouraged and even forbidden by the Church. The Church was forbidding marriages for those spouses that were related. It must be said here that Quebec is/was predominantly Catholic and that all marriage licenses were registered and archived, only the priests could bless a marriage. However, it could happen that a couple requests a waiver to marry if the were related. With a monetary exemption, a couple could circumvent the ban (and I imagine be told that they would not have any problems with X chromosomes ...) All religious exemptions were recorded in the archives of the Archbishop of Quebec (and then transferred the civil archives).

No data were inventoried before 1885, until it became mandatory for clergy to report annual information to the bishop. We will remember that canon law requires an exemption for consanguineous marriages up to 6th degree inclusively. Before 1917, it was to the 8th generation.

So in conclusion, should we count our blessing in Quebec to not have more "defects"? ... and before you say anything ... I have to fess up ... my paternal grand-parents ... they were cousins -- first generation. So maybe to not have had children is a blessing in disguised for humanity! I am SO considerate!!!

Source: Guajara, Le Devoir