Background: Approximately 12-15% of patients with intracranial aneurysms (IA) have affected first-degree relatives, and are considered to have familial intracranial aneurysms (FIA). Individuals with FIA are at higher risk for aneurysm formation and subarachnoid hemorrhage. THSD1 is the only gene to be associated with nonsyndromic FIA at this time. Our study aims to find rare DNA variants that are major risk factors for FIA in our cohort of patients. Methods: To date we have enrolled 37 affected and 31 unaffected people from 16 families. We have done exome or genome sequencing on at least 1 person from each of 12 families. Results: A rare p.(R686W) variant in THSD1 was found in 1/12 families, but did not cosegregate fully with disease. While less attractive as the primary cause of FIA, we cannot rule out the potential modifying effects of THSD1 p.(R686W) in this family. A second candidate, an extracellular matrix gene within a chromosomal region previously implicated by familial mapping studies, contains rare variants in 4/12 of our families. All four variants are predicted to be damaging. Conclusions: Alongside environmental risk factors, individual FIA families may also have complex rare variant contributions to their disease, such as digenic and multi-locus contributions.