Hail, dear cousin!

Today’s subject wasn’t something I happened upon during writing, but it’s been on my mind for years and I never bothered to look it up until recently.

My family is very small. If you read my last post, you know practically all of my grandparents died before I reached puberty. My mom has no siblings, and my father’s family don’t endear themselves to fellowship and conversation.

So I went back a few generations. My mother’s mother had one sister who never had children. Dead end there. My father’s family – see above. That’s as nice as I can be about it.

As a result, my only source for possible reconnection is my mother’s father. He had five siblings. 

Obviously their children would be my mother’s cousins (and generationally too old for me to really connect with), but what does that make them to me? And what would their children be to me?

Hence, the topic at hand.

I have made a chart to make things clearer, but from what I have found:

Sibling A (let’s call him John) and sibling B (let’s call her Anne) each have children. Those children are first cousins – what we normally think of when we say, “Oh, that’s my cousin.”

Now, if John’s children have children, and Anne’s children have children, that third generation will be second cousins to each other, and their children will be third cousins to each other. Easy enough to follow.

But I’m sure we’ve all heard about the removed.

It sounded to me like estranged family members, black sheep, pariahs.

“Oh Sally? She my first cousin twice removed. We don’t talk about her.”

What it actually refers to is the generation separation. My mother’s first cousin is my first cousin once removed. My mother’s first cousin’s children are my second cousins, but to my mother they are her first cousins once removed. My grandfather’s first cousin would be my first cousin twice removed, because I came two generations later. Likewise, I am the same title to that cousin – his first cousin twice removed.

The chart for the visual learner:

And, of course, Anne would be John III's great-aunt (why don’t they call it grandaunt?): his grandfather's sister and father's aunt. Likewise, John is Anne III's great-uncle.

If there were a John IV, he would be Anne’s great-great-nephew (“great grandnephew” would make more sense), Anne Jr’s first cousin twice removed, and Anne III’s second cousin once removed.

Sources and further information:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bridgett/cousins.htm

http://www.genealogy.com/16_cousn.html

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Massive Addictive” by Amaranthe