If you have a family history of multiple births, your chance of having twins or perhaps triplets could increase. The truth is that family connection and twins remains a little on the controversial side. It does seem that some families are more prone to multiple births than other families are. In fact, on special occasions, one family will have more than one set of twins, which could be identical or fraternal, or both.
After in-depth medical research, the only connection found between families and twins is a history of what is known as Hyper-ovulation. In this case, multiple eggs are released during a woman’s ovulation, opposed to just one egg. With this, the more eggs released, the greater the chance of having a multiple birth. Now, keep in mind that with the woman being the one that ovulates, the connection comes from her side, not the man’s side. Yes, some men do carry the gene, which can then be passed on to a daughter but hearing that a family of twins increases your chance of having twins is a misnomer.
The same is true for twins skipping down a generation. The bottom line is that after years and years of study, no evidence of this exists. Therefore, this information is yet another misconception surrounding twins. Therefore, when it comes to twins having a connection with the family, it is really a gamble on what will happen.
Identical twins are simply a random act, meaning there is no connection from family to family. Now, if your family has twins several generations back, you may or may not have twins yourself. In fact, the only way to really, understand is through special DNA testing, which could be expensive. Therefore, if you have a great-grandparent who was a twin, you would not automatically have twins, although you could.