You may have attended one or more family gatherings over the past few days. Sometimes, it is clear who everyone in the room is. Other times, there are relations and relationships that leave you wondering what the proper genealogical term is to describe them. For example, my husband and I took our son to my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve. My dad was there, and his relationship to my son is easy to figure out – he is his grandfather. Three of my aunts and two of my uncles were there. These wonderful people are my son’s great aunts and great uncles.
Most of my cousins were also there. We are mostly all grown up, with the youngest among us still in college. One of my cousins has an adorable six month old boy. What term describes my genealogical link to that little guy? I am his first cousin, once removed. What about my son? Everyone was referring to the two little guys as cousins, and I did not have the heart to correct them, but my cousin’s son is not my son’s cousin. He is my son’s second cousin. Of course, since my cousin and I have a good relationship and see each other a few times each year, the boys are likely to build a special bond and will look forward to seeing each other at family gatherings no matter what the term is that is used to describe their relation.
Also, what about the brothers or sisters of my aunts and uncles who are not siblings of my father? For example, the brother of one of my aunts always attends the Christmas Eve festivities. Of course since aunts and uncles are married couples, one is from my dad’s family and the other is not – in this case, my uncle is my dad’s brother and my aunt was not family until she married my uncle. So, what relation is her brother to me? What about my son? After looking at the relationship charts for a while – and for some reason they are so confusing to me – I have concluded that we are not related because we do not share a common ancestor. Of course, I could be wrong, but that is what it seems to say. Sometimes a relationship chart is useful in figuring out who all of those relatives are, but sometimes even a genealogically inclined person has a little trouble making sense of them all.
Photo by gracey on morguefile.com.