Understanding cousin levels can be difficult, as it is based on the common ancestor of two people. First cousins share a grandparent, second cousins share a great-grandparent, and third cousins share a great-great-grandparent. Removals occur when the relationship to the ancestor is generationally separated. Double cousins occur when two sisters marry two brothers.
Cousin levels, also called cousin grades, are quite difficult to figure out. Especially for people who come from a large family, deciding how to determine first, second, and third cousins, and even what it means once or twice removed, can be tough. Cousins are not based on a person’s parents’ relationship with their siblings and are not based on marriages, except on an informal basis. Instead, relatedness is based on the common ancestor of two people.
For example, if a person’s mother’s sister has children, she might conclude that these children are her first cousins. That would be correct, but the relationship is not based on whether they are the mother’s sister’s children. His aunt’s children, on the other hand, are his first cousins because they share a grandfather. This is the common ancestor, to which both individuals claim the same relationship. Note that this does not apply to children of the same parents who share the same grandparent. Instead, the closest common ancestors of these children are their parents, so they are siblings, not cousins.
When children share the same great-grandparent, but not the same grandparent, they are considered second cousins. Thus, if a man has children, and his first cousin (his aunt’s son) has children, then these children will have a great-grandfather in common. It gets a little more complicated when considering a cousin’s children.
When the common ancestor does not have the same relationship with two people, then the question of repressions comes into play. In the case of a person’s cousin’s and the person’s cousin’s children, the common ancestor is the grandfather, but for these children, that person is the great-grandfather. Therefore, his first cousin’s children are his first cousins once removed. Removals occur only when the relationship to the ancestor is generationally separated.
Here are some examples of cousin levels with movers:
Jane has a grandfather who is Joey’s great grandfather.
Jane and Joey are first cousins once removed. Jane has a grandfather who is Jim’s great-great-grandfather.
They are first cousins twice removed. Jane has a grandfather who is John’s great-great-grandfather.
They are first cousins removed three times.
The never-moving cousin always means that the common ancestor has the same relationship with each cousin:
First cousins: Two people share a grandparent
Second cousins: Two people share a great-grandparent
Third cousins: Two people share a great-great-grandfather.
It gets considerably more complicated when determining second or third level of cousins and the degree of removal. When someone has a great-grandparent who is someone else’s great-great-great grandfather, they are second cousins once removed. If they have a common ancestor who is one person’s great-great-grandparent and the other’s great-great-grandfather, they are third cousins once removed. Removal essentially counts generational differences, or how many generations two people are separated from the common ancestor.
There is a special cousin relationship called double cousins, which makes people doubly related to each other. This occurs when two sisters marry two brothers. The children of these marriages will share not only a common grandparent but will share two sets of grandparents. Therefore, they are double cousins and are probably closely related, genetically, to each other.
Kinship here is determined by European and American standards. The levels may be different in other cultures and the term “cousin” may not even exist in some cultures of the world. It can get a little murky to figure out these relationships, and some people essentially avoid the issue and just call every relative they know cousins or second cousins. From a genealogical point of view, this is not entirely correct, but it still implies a family relationship.
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