Hungarian Village Celebrates 700 Years of Non-Stop Incest

Hungary's ongoing "cucumber season" was rudely interrupted yesterday by an incredible story of incest and depravity that has literally been waiting centuries to break. An eye-popping exposé in tab Szines bulvár lap (beach-friendly print only) profiles a bizarre village where the "y" on the end of "Ivády" really does mean you are from the village of Ivád, near Eger. The 480 ivádi Ivády (modern Hungarian adds an "i") have a proud history of ceaseless incest dating back seven centuries, and they even have a website to celebrate it.

The freakish family tree is something the Ivády are very proud of and can be downloaded - in .zip format - from ivad.hu, the village/family website. Note, however, that if you decide to pritn it out, you'll need 20 meters of paper.

The SzBL report says anthropologists who have studied the case do not fully understand how the beaming Ivádys (that's a few from the most recent hatch) are so healthy, despite nearly a millennium of relentless inbreeding. They may all have long noses and an excellent ear for music, but apparently no Ivády has ever been born with a genetic deformity - or at least none severe enough that they couldn't find another Ivády willing to sleep with them.