Most children born to unseparated conjoined twins

Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins from Siam (now Thailand), were born in 1811. In 1843, the twins married sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates and fathered 21 children between them – Chang and Adelaide had 10 and Eng and Sarah had 11. The families lived in Mount Airy in North Carolina, USA, spending three days at a time in each of their homes. The twins were connected from the sternum to the umbilicus by a flexible band about five inches long. Later examination after their death revealed that the band consisted of skin, blood vessels, cartilage and liver. A plaster cast of their bodies can be viewed at the Mütter Museum, College of Physicians and Surgeons, in Philadelphia, USA. Conjoined twins occur in approximately 1 in 200 identical twin births.

The twins left hundreds of descendants that convene every year in Mount Airy for a family reunion. Fraternal twins Chang Bunker, left, and Eng Bunker (great-grandsons of Eng), attended the 25th annual reunion of the Bunker twins’ descendants, held Saturday, 26 July 26 2014 at the First Baptist Church. The event included about 200 descendants of the original twins and their guests.