‘Sister Wives’: Are Kody and His Wives Related? How the Brown Family Lines Are Connected
The Brown family, featured for the last 16 seasons of Sister Wives, has a complicated family tree. The family already has an untraditional family tree considering they are practicing polygamists. It becomes even more confusing when all of Kody’s wives’ family lines cross. Let’s unravel the confusing Brown family trees and see how they connect.
Kody and Christine are related (fourth cousins)
With the help of Ancestry.com, Radar Online found that the husband and wife, Kody and Christine, are actually distant cousins. According to the report, Christine’s great-great-grandfather, Bryon Allred, was brother to Nelson Allread, Kody’s great-great-grandfather. While it’s a very distant relation, it still feels strange that they share ancestors, William Moore Allred and Orissa Angela Bates — which means that Kody and Christine are fourth cousins.
Sister Wives fans might find this shocking, but the family once belonged to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) church sect called The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB). When this section of the church was founded, it was a tight-knit group, and it’s not uncommon for the members to share the same ancestor.
Janelle’s mother married Kody’s father
Kody also happens to be stepsiblings with his second wife, Janelle Brown. According to Sister Wives Wiki, Janelle’s mother, Sheryl Usher, remarried after her husband died in 1972. She married Kody’s father, William Winn Brown, and became one of his wives three months before Janelle married Kody.
This means that when Janelle and Kody married (spiritually), they were already stepsiblings. While it’s not illegal, it is another example of family lines crossing over.
Janelle was married to Meri’s brother
Yet another strange connection is that Janelle was married to her sister wife’s brother. Janelle was married to Meri’s brother, Adam Barber, in 1988. They divorced for unknown reasons in 1990.
Then, Meri introduced her former sister-in-law, Janelle, to her husband, Kody, and the two began courting. Janelle and Kody married spiritually on January 20, 1993.
Robyn’s ex-husband is related to Christine and Kody
There is yet another strange connection between the Brown family and Robyn’s ex-husband, David Jessop. Before Robyn married Kody, she was legally married to David from 1999 to 2007. The name “Jessop” is a well-known name in the polygamist community. Merril Jessop was the de facto head of the FLDS church from December 2007 to February 2011.
