The Salyers (Instagram)
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]
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In 2017, identical twins Briana and Brittany met Jeremy and Josh, also identical twins, at a festival for twins. Soon, the romance began. After only six months, both Jeremy and Josh had proposed to their respective girlfriends. The couples had a joint wedding ceremony at the Twins Day Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, on August 5, 2018, and now share a home in Virginia.
On August 13, 2020, the couples posted big news to their shared Instagram account, exclaiming, “Guess what!!?? BOTH couples are pregnant. We are thrilled and grateful to experience overlapping pregnancies and to share this news with you all!” The post continued, “Our children will not only be cousins but full genetic siblings and quaternary multiples! Can’t wait to meet them and for them to meet each other!”
In 2021, both sisters gave birth to baby boys, Jax and Jett, and posted a photo on social media, with the caption, “Cousins, genetic brothers, and quaternary twins.”
Their Instagram followers were baffled by this post, wondering if the sisters had used donated eggs or some sort of fertility treatments. One person commented, “I’ve never heard of this before,” while another asked, “What on earth is a “quaternary twin”?
When most siblings have children, those children are labeled cousins — but when identical twins marry identical twins and both couples have children, both sets of identical twins share the same DNA, and the children that result are therefore genetically twins, though not from the same parents. They are considered quaternary twins.
Jett, born in January 2021, and Jax, born in April 2021, look almost identical. If the family did a DNA test, the results would identify the two boys as brothers, not as cousins.
The twin sisters have always hoped to have their children around the same time. Brittany previously shared, “We have experienced most milestones of our lives together — birthdays, getting our driver’s license[s], graduations, and our double wedding. [Having children] would be the next huge event, and we’d love to experience it together, and ideally we will.”
The Salyers were thrilled to have their baby boys within months of each other and look forward to them growing up together. Legally cousins, genetically siblings, and living in the same house, the boys are sure to be close.