Genealogy and Family History - The Meaning of Relationships Or What's a 'Once

[Jane Tilly]

Cousins
In everyday life, we rarely (if ever) refer to someone as "my second
cousin once removed." It suffices to simply refer to them as a
"cousin." But, when doing genealogy, we usually want to be more
precise about relationships, although it can be confusing to
understand what these relationships mean once we know them.
A "cousin" in general is someone who has the same ancestors as you do
(or two other people who have common ancestors.) We are all familiar
with terms like "second cousin," "third cousin" etc. We have also
heard cousins described as once, twice or three times removed. At that
point we usually just scratch our heads and go on to the next topic.
But it really isn't that hard to get a working understanding of the
relationships surrounding cousins, if you learn just 2 simple
concepts:
1. Cousins with no removal designations are in the same generation, or
to put it another way, they are the same distance away from the common
ancestor.
2. The term 'removed' is applied when the two people in question are
in different generations, or in other words, they are of differing
distances from the common ancestor.
So let's examine what that means.
Cousins with no removal designations are in the same generation.
This means that in relation to a common ancestor, they would both be
3rd great grandchildren, or 5th great grandchildren etc.
Going the other way around, if you have two individuals who are both
4th great grandchildren, then you know that they will simply be
cousins of some level with no removal designation.
To determine what level of cousins they are, simply add 1 to the
generation. If they are 3rd great grandchildren, then they are 4th
cousins. If they are 5th great grandchildren, then they are 6th
cousins, etc. Great grandchildren are not usually called 1st great
grandchildren, but the number is understood, and so cousins in this
generation, by adding 1, would be 2nd cousins.
By the same token, if you know that they are 4th cousins, then you
also know that they share 3rd great grandparents in common.
The term 'removed' is applied when the two people in question are in
different generations.
For example, if you have a 3rd great grandchild, and a 5th great
grandchild, you will have a removal designation. It's not really
difficult to determine what their actual relationship is, including
the removal designation. All you need to know is the relationship of
both individuals to the common ancestor.
To determine the actual relationship, you start with the one that is
closest to the ancestor in question. Cousinship begins with
grandchildren, as that is the first generation in which cousins are
found. Anyone in this generation in relation to the common ancestor is
a first cousin to all other descendants of that ancestor at the
grandchild level and below. So if you are comparing a grandchild and a
5th great grandchild, they would still be first cousins. This is where
the removal designation comes in.
Because grandchildren are the starting place for determining
cousinship, they have the designator of 0. So a 5th Great Grandchild
compared with a Grandchild would be five times removed. It does not
matter which of the two is in the grandchild generation.
But what happens if you have descendants of generations lower than the
first one? For example, lets take a 5th great grandchild and an 8th
great grandchild of the same ancestor. In this case you would start
with the closest one, the 5th great grandchild. If you assume for the
moment that both of the individuals in question were in the same
generation, we know that they would be sixth cousins, because we would
add 1 to the generation. So we start with 'sixth cousins.' Then we
need to determine what the removal designation is.
Put simply, the removal designation represents the difference between
the two generations. So in our example of a 5th great grandchild and
an 8th great grandchild, they would be 3 times removed from each
other. A 6th Great Grandchild and a 2nd Great Grandchild would be 4
times removed, etc.
Putting these two concepts together then, we can determine the
cousinship between any two descendents of a common ancestor. Let's
take a hypothetical example.
Let's say that you have discovered that one set of your direct
ancestors were also the grandparents of George Washington. How are you
and George Washington related? Well first, George is the closest to
the ancestors in question, so you start with him. Being their
grandson, and being in the first generation in which cousins are
found, your relationship to George would be that of first cousin. To
determine the level of removal you now need to look at your own
lineage. You discover that you are the 7th great grandchild of these
ancestors. The difference between your generation and George's
generation is 7. This would make you and George Washington first
cousins 7 times removed.
You may be wondering how this is different from seventh cousins once
removed. Seventh cousins would BOTH have to be AT LEAST 7 generations
from the common ancestor. The once removed part would put one of the
two into the 8th generation.
So here are the steps to take when determining the cousinship between
any two descendants of a common ancestor:
1. Determine the generation of each individual in relation to the
common ancestor.
2. If they are in the same generation, then just add one to the
generation and that is your cousin level.
3. If they are in different generations, take the closest one to the
ancestor, add one, and that is your cousin level.
4. Determine the difference between the two generations and that is
your removal level.
As a side note, people today often refer to the children of their
cousins as their second cousins. This is technically inaccurate. The
children of your cousins are your first cousins once removed. Your
children would be their second cousins.
Aunts and Uncles
Figuring out relationships to Aunts and Uncles is a bit easier. If one
person is a child of a common ancestor, and another person is a
grandchild or lower of that same ancestor through another child, then
an aunt or uncle / nephew or niece relationship exists. The level is
determined by subtracting 1 from the generation of the grandchild.
For example, if you are the 6th great grandchild of the ancestor in
question, then the siblings of the child who is in your direct line
would be your 5th great grand uncles and aunts, and you would be their
5th great grand nephew or niece.
As with grandparents, the first generation after uncle and aunt (or
niece and nephew) is grand uncle/aunt, and then great grand uncle/
aunt. After that you start with 2nd great grands.

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