• Question: If there are two boy twins and two girl twins and then the girl and they boy had children, would they be twins?

    Asked by dandelion to Mike, Tim, Tom on 5 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      Great question!
      I reckon that they wouldn’t. If you’ve got a brother or sister (not a twin), I bet that you look similar but not identical. I think it’d be the same for two children born from two sets of twin parents.

    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      Twins are two babies born from the same mum at (pretty much) the same time. So if the 2 boys paired off with the two girls (assuming identical twins here) then their children would not be twins, although they might be quite similar.

      Each of the babies will inheret about half of the genes from the twin daddy and half from the twin mummy. If the two mummies and two daddies have the same genes, then the babies will be genetically as similar as any two brothers and sisters. So genetically they wil be like siblings, but not like twins.

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