Increasing the fraction of special boundaries such as Σ3-related coincident site lattice (CSL) boundaries has been a promising route for improvement in mechanical as well as functional properties. Although various routes of thermomechanical processing have been applied for increasing the fraction of annealing twin boundaries, a proper understanding of the mechanism would allow optimization of the processing parameters to attain a maximum fraction of twin boundaries. Present study throws some light onto the evolution of twin boundaries during annealing of deformed low stacking fault energy (SFE) FCC materials. Cold-rolled Cu[sbnd]Zn alloy and 316 L stainless steel were given heat-treatment for various lengths of time in order to study the variation in GBCD during recrystallization and grain growth. We analyse the results by distributing twins of various deviations and then observing their evolution with recrystallization. Based on our data, we propose that higher deviation twins devolve into lower deviation twins and, very small angle boundaries. During grain growth, twin fraction was found to remain constant throughout the annealing times. This is in contrast to the observations in the literature about the decrease in twin density during grain growth due to consumption of twins by growing grains. However, fraction of smaller deviation twins indicates that grain growth actually takes place in two stages which can be clearly delineated using GBCD variation. The first stage is marked by a drop in twin density, proposed to be caused by the internal stress at the boundaries between growing grains during the grain growth stage and not with the consumption of twins by adjacent growing grains as suggested earlier (Jin et al., 2014 [1]). While, the second stage showed further increment in twin fraction continuously up to larger annealing times, which we believe is again due to dissociation of very small angle boundaries. © 2019 Elsevier Inc.