jgpo@iwu1c.UUCP (10/04/83)
Since net.genealogy hasn't been created yet, I am posting this to net.misc. (By the way, I kind of like the net.roots suggestion someone had.) What is the meaning of all the different flavors of cousins? First cousin is obvious, but I get lost with all the removals, seconds, and thirds. What is my great-uncle's son? Is he my first cousin, once removed, or is he my second cousin? I get around the confusion by calling him "Uncle Jim." Once we have properly classified Uncle Jim, what is his daughter wrt me? Is she my first cousin, twice removed, second cousin, once removed, second cousin, third cousin, shirttail relative, or complete stranger? I tried drawing a diagram for a hypothetical family, showing all the possible interrelations and gene-sharing, but it got hopelessly complex. Also, I started getting ambiguous results wrt the percentage of genes in common. HELP! Confusedly yours John Opalko ...!ihnp4!iwu1c!jgpo
tjarks@ihlts.UUCP (10/04/83)
This is how it was explained to me in a short genealogy course I took. I think everyone understands what a first cousin is (offspring of your parent's sibling). I'll use examples from my own family to try to keep things straight. Carolyn is my first cousin. Her daughter, Joyce, is my first cousin, once removed. Joyce's expected child will be my first cousin twice removed. My daughter, Kalen, is Joyce's second cousin. Joyce's child will be Kalen's second cousin once removed. Carried on further, my grandchild and Carolyn's grandchild would be third cousins, and our great-grandchildren will be fourth cousins (and also perfect strangers, no doubt). It boils down to figuring out how many generations down each person is from the common ancestor. If both people are one generation down from the common ancestor, they are siblings. Two generations down make them first cousins. Ten generation down make them ninth cousins. If both people are not the same number of generations down from the common ancestor, that's when the "removed" comes in, with the Nth cousin part based on the person closest to the common ancestor. Example, person A is the great-great-grandchild for person C (4 generations down). Person B is the (6 * great)-grandchild of person C (8 generations down). That makes persons A and B third cousins four times removed. The last paragraph leads to another question. Is there an acceptable abbreviation in genealogical terms for something like great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Tim Tjarks ihnp4!ihlts!tjarks
glc@akgua.UUCP (g.l. cleveland ) (10/05/83)
John Opalko put out a call for HELP on the taxonomy (how's that
for a 50-cent word!) of cousins. Herewith is my feeble effort
at a response.
ON THE TERMINOLOGY OF GENEALOGY
Many times we hear the phrases "Second cousin, Third cousin once
removed, First cousin twice removed, ..." and often wonder what is
being communicated.
Relationships between persons on different generational levels
are defined by the "removed" terminology. If that phrase bothers
you, be aware that it is really a shortened form of the true
description, which is "{One|Two|Three|...} generations removed."
So the term "Second cousins, twice removed" can be expanded to:
"Second cousins, two generations removed (apart)"
common parent
|
-------------------+--------------------
| | | |
Q R <-----siblings-----> S T
| |
--+-- --+--
| | | |
M N <---first cousins--> O P
| |
--+-- --+--
| | | |
I J <--second cousins--> K L
| |
--+-- --+--
| | | |
E F <---third cousins--> G H
| |
--+-- --+--
| | | |
A B <--fourth cousins--> C D
In the above chart,
N and P are first cousins
N and K are first cousins (once removed)
N and H are first cousins (twice removed)
N and D are first cousins (thrice removed)
Of course, for very close relationships, there are special terms,
such as Grandmother/Grandfather, Aunt/Uncle, Great-Aunt/Great-Uncle,
An interesting aspect to all this has to do with the prohibition in
some states against first cousins marrying. Many of these laws
perhaps originated due to the precepts in the Old Testament.
But there was probably a bit of cultural wisdom buried in the
lawmaker's decisions. When you look back into the European history
and note the many references to the disasterous progeny produced by
the close inbreeding of the Nobility, and couple this with the
years of livestock breeding which the agrarian society of the day
had, you can easily understand the motives behind such laws.
Cheers,
Lindsay
Lindsay Cleveland (...{ihnp4|mhux?|clyde}!akgua!glc)
AT&T Western Electric/Bell Labs ... Atlanta, Ga
(404) 447-3909 ... Cornet 583-3909dvk@mi-cec.UUCP (Dan Klein) (10/07/83)
Thank you Tim Tjarks. I'll just attempt to put it graphically (aren't full screen editors just great?) A | ----------------- | | | B C D | | | --------- -------- --------- | | | | | | E F G H I J | | | | | | --------- | | | | --------- | | | | | | | | K L M N O P Q R | | | | | | | | S T U V W X Y Z E-G, F-G, F-H, F-I, S-T etc are all 1st cousins (1C) B-G, E-M, G-O, H-N are aunt/uncle-niece/nephew pairs M-G, F-N, H-R are 1st cousins once removed (1C1R) K-M, L-P, S-U, T-U are 2C U-V, W-X, S-Z, U-Y are 3C M-V, U-N, O-X, K-Y are 2C1R F-V, W-I, I-Z are 1C2R B-N, B-P are great-aunt/uncle B-V, B-W are great-great-aunt/uncle -Dan Klein, Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh
ed@unisoft.UUCP (10/10/83)
Cousins' namings are actually very straight forward. Degree-of-cousinness (first, second) refers to the number of generations the cousins are decended from the siblings who started it all. Thus, first cousins are children of siblings, second cousins are grandchildren of siblings, etc. Removal deals with cousins at different levels of the tree, one level of removal is one generation. Thus the child of one sibling and the grandchild of the other are first cousins once removed. (Logically, it seems that they could also be second cousins once removed, but for clarity's sake, the convention is to remove from the older generation.) Your great-uncle's son (your great uncle being the brother of your grandparent) is your first cousin once removed. Ed Gould ucbvax!mtxinu!ed