Kinship
Who are your third cousins - second cousins twice removed - Grand Aunts and Uncles? Once you get beyond first cousins - the public at large find these relationships confusing - resulting in large degree of misuse. Which in turn propogates further misuse.
To add to the confusion there are honary Aunts and Uncles. In my own case I had two "aunts" which I had always accepted as aunts - but when I started genealogy and began to work out relationships - I found they were cousins some 20 years older than myself. My mother came from a large family and they were the children of her eldest brother! Another but accepted misuse are the partners of blood Aunts and Uncles. Then there are the close friends of your parents - who also tend to get the honary Aunt/Uncle title - I certainly had a few.
How do you work it out? Well starting from the obvious and expanding from there.
| Generation: |
Children grandchildren etc. having the same number of decendant steps down from
any given common ancestor.
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| 1st Common Ancestors: |
I am not sure if there is a standard definition - but the definition herein
explains what I mean in context to the rest of the relationships.
If two cousins were to trace their ancestral lines - they would eventually arrive at the ancestor couple from which they both descended. It is any couple thus found - that I refer to in the examples below - as 1st Common Ancestors |
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| Siblings: | Brothers and sisters of the same family e.g - 1st Common Ancestor would be their parents | ||||||||||
| Grandparents: | Parents of both your father and mother. | ||||||||||
| Aunt & Uncles: |
Siblings of either of your parents
e.g - 1st Common Ancestor would be your Grandparents |
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Cousins:
(any degree) |
Must be of the same generation | ||||||||||
| 1st cousins: |
You and the children of your aunts and uncles. General usage of
just 'cousin' is accepted as meaning '1st cousin'.
Whilst you may have cousins from both your mother's and father's sides of the family. These cousins from the different sides are NOT related to one another in any way - unless there is a separate genetic link. e.g. your parents are cousins to some degree - or a brother and sister from one family marry a sister and brother from a second family - etc. |
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| Grand Aunts/Uncles: |
Siblings of either of your Grandparents - frequently and
incorrectly called Great Aunts/Uncles.
e.g - 1st Common Ancestor would be your Great-Grandparents |
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| 2nd cousins: |
You and the Grandchildren of your Grand-Aunts/Uncles.
e.g - 1st Common Ancestor would be your Great-Grandparents This is the same as the relationship between your children and the children of your 1st cousins. |
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| Great-Grand Aunts/Uncles: |
Siblings of all of your Great-Grandparents.
e.g - 1st Common Ancestor would be your Great-Great-Grandparents. This expands to the siblings of your Great-Great-Grand-Parents being your Great-Great-Grand Aunts/Uncles and so on. |
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| 3rd cousins: |
You and the Great-Grandchildren of your Great-Grand-Aunts/Uncles.
e.g - 1st Common Ancestor would be your Great-Great-Grandparents This is the same as the relationship between your Grand-children and the Grand-children of your 1st cousins. |
Well that's the easy bit - and all of this assumes that cousins haven't inter-married.
Now for the removed bit - which only applies to cousins - and you will find it easier to visulise if you think of these relationships as :-
Two generations removed rather that twice removed
And so on.
I've frequently had said to me - you're my fathers 1st cousin so that makes us second cousins - WRONG. In fact the realtionship is 1st cousins one generation removed - and it is the earlier generation that governs. Remember that cousins to whatever degree - must be of the same generation.
So your Grandfathers 1st cousin is your 1st cousin two generations removed - your Grandfathers second cousin is your second cousin two generations removed - and so on.
By the same token - your 1st cousins Grandchildren are your 1st cousins two generations removed.
