It’s easy. This is the chart they give every student in law school:
https://www.fortbend.lib.tx.us/sites/default/files/2018-11/family_relationship_chart.pdf
You just taught me something in five minutes that I’ve never been able to learn in almost three decades.
That’s amazing! I’m 52 and from a small family and this stuff has always confused me.
That’s how I felt when I first saw this too. Glad it helps.
How about being born into a family, going through life and never having anyone tell you who is related to who, how and whatever family secrets that you shouldn’t take about.
Then get to 20 years of age and everyone treats you like an idiot for not knowing that aunt Margaret had a secret affair in 1975 had an illigitiment child who is your best friend, then she got married, divorced had three other children from different men and you always thought that their father died a long ago. No one talks about any of this but you are somehow supposed to know.
Why would they have to tell you? Everyone knows!! /s
One of my favourite responses from family members goes something like … how did you not know that was your mothers, uncle, second cousin through marriage, stepson’s foster child? Don’t you even know your own family?
I have a ton of family in a variety of situations either through marriage, divorce, commonlaw, one night stands, rape, incest, undetermined, suspected, or just unknown … it’s also an Indigenous family so it gets weird sometimes when you have all brown family members and then an oddball white child that came out of left field, no explanation, no one talks about it, yet the white looking child is no different in culture and language than any of the rest of the family. I have two cousins who could pass off as completely white but their first language is Ojibway-Cree and they were born and raised like brown little old me.
And it gets hilariously insane quickly too … the whole family will complain about the indian-wanna-bes and pretendians … while our white looking cousins are sitting right next to us agreeing to everything we’re saying.
Families are weird … Native families are on another level
I FEEL that. I thought another man was my father until 8th grade.
“Who’s this Steve guy you’re talking about?”
Everyone looked at me like I just grew a second head.
This is, uhh, oddly specific…? You ok?
Feels like the same families that don’t teach you a damn thing about how to be an adult and then treat you like shit for making any mistakes in life.
It’s not hard.
Cousin # = # of generations back to your shared direct ancestor - 1.
So if you share a grandparent (2 generations away), you’re 1st cousins.
removed is how many generations away you are from each other.
So if your parent is first cousins with someone, you’re first cousins once removed. You’re second cousins to their kids. You’re second cousins once removed to their children.
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You mean, literally the example at the end of their (very thorough) explanation?
Your dad and his cousin share a set of grandparents. You and your dad’s cousin’s kid share a set of great-grandparents. That’s 3 generations up for both of you. So, 2nd cousins. No removed.
You think that’s confusing? Someone else from my Grandfather’s family, one of his cousins, married someone else from my Grandmother’s family, one of her cousins.
Our family tree is so messed up.
Your family tree is a Gordian knot? Or a Möbius strip?
The lines just go all over the place.
I have a great-grandmother where her and her 2 sisters married 3 brothers.
I also have a great aunt on my mom’s side that married my paternal grandfather years after both of their spouses died.
Posh people: “your second cousin twice removed is the child of your grandfather’s half-sister-wife’s first child’s […]”
Poor people: cousins are anyone on the same layer of the family tree. Higher is aunt/uncle, and lower is niece/nephew.
Instead of poor people: that’s how the layers work at least in Latin cultures.
The “Posh” one is how it works it British cultures. They’re different, but the second one in Hispanic cultures works the same for posh or poor people.
You have family reunions?
I don’t even know what removed means.
Family reunions: a time when people who largely don’t care at all about one another get together to pretend they don’t all hate each other’s guts and will temporarily try not to talk shit about the others (this will proceed immediately after), during which they all pretend to want to learn useless info about others and it’s always dominated by the most narcissistic of elderly who want to be listened to and hear their own voice a lot.
