Counting Cousins

Until I started doing genealogy work, I had no idea what people meant by 2nd cousin once removed or twice removed. I’m thinking, removed? Why are you removing them? In my family we counted cousins more simply, your first cousins are your aunt and uncles kids. The children of your first cousins are your second cousins, then their children are 3rd. If it’s your parents first cousin, they are your second. No removals, we claim them all! I told you a few months ago that Teresa and I are 2nd cousins. She’s biologically my moms half first cousin, but we never include the half. Since she’s my moms first, I call her my second cousin. If you are trying to have a conversation with someone who counts cousins differently, this difference in methodology can be problematic. The first example that comes to mind is when trying to justify dating a cousin. How close is too close to date? Don’t judge me, my family is from a community where endogamy is standard. I did a blog on it, so go read it if you haven’t already. Anyway, I would often hear that after 3rd cousins, you aren’t really related. Well, which way are you counting cousins? In my case, a 3rd cousin is the child of my second cousin, or someone who’s grandparent is a sibling to my grandparent. This means I share a great grandparent with them. If you count cousins using removal, a 3rd cousin is someone you share a great great grandparent with. One is much closer than the other! So to help you, let’s break down the removal method, which is not the official name. A first cousin is someone you share a grandparent with. A second cousin shares a great grandparent. Third cousins share great great grandparents, and so forth. The removal comes in as you connect to your cousins offspring or your parents cousins. The child of a cousin is once removed. The grandchild of a cousin is twice removed. If you move up a generation in the family tree and compare yourself to your parents cousin, they are also once removed. Based on this, Teresa should be my first cousin once removed. According to a chart on FamilySearch.org you can continue to remove people generation after generation, even through 7x removed! If this is as clear as mud, then I’ve done my job! My intention in sharing this information with you is to know that if you are accustomed to using the simplified counting, you will need to adjust your thinking when doing genealogy research. The removal method is the standard and will be used for most online family trees and DNA results. In order to understand the relationships with distant relatives, understanding this method of counting cousins is important.

As always,

Keep Searching