I know very little about extended family on my father’s side, because his parents were from large families and moved far away from them. My mother’s family was much smaller, geographically closer, and for both those reasons easier to socialize with. So, I can name six Second Cousins on my mom’s side. I’ve met five of them. The youngest was born after my grandmother died and she was really the architect of family get togethers.
there are 4 first cousins in my generation of my mom’s family. We’re all on the east coast of the US; one in Connecticut, one in New Jersey, I’m in Maryland, and the baby of the family is in Florida. I have three first cousins on my father’s side whom I’ve never met. I’m friends on facebook with one of them. One of them lives in Massachusetts, one in Connecticut, and one in Montana.
Not very well. While I was married to his father and we all lived in California we did socialize quite a bit with extended family. But there has been very limited contact since we moved to the east coast.
A first cousin of my maternal grandfather is still alive so, four. My son had three living great-grandparents when he was born but they all passed on by the time he was twelve years old.
Through facebook I connected with some permutation of cousin. I have never bothered to figure out fourth or 2nd twice removed. I did see the explanation upthread, which is clearer than my previous understanding. Anyway, her great-grandfather and my great grandfather were brothers. They were two out of ten kids. I imagine there are hundreds of people I’m related to about whom I have no idea.
I have several interesting ‘double relative’ situations in my family…
My paternal grandmother’s brother (my great-uncle) married my paternal grandfather’s first cousin. Their oldest granddaughter and I are the same age and have always been very close. She is both my 2nd cousin (on grandma’s side we share great-grandparents) and 3rd cousin (on grandpa’s side we share great-great-grandparents).
My paternal grandmother’s youngest brother (dad’s uncle) married my mom’s first cousin. Their son is my 1st cousin 1x removed (dad’s side) and my 2nd cousin (mom’s side).
The last one reminds why people make fun of the South…
For the first 15 years of my life, my dad’s eldest 1st cousin was my 1st cousin 1x removed and his wife the same (by marriage). My parents divorced and my mom remarried. My step-dad is the brother of my dad’s 1st cousin’s wife. So my 1st cousin 1x removed is also my step-uncle now.
How many Second Cousins can you name, and how many of them have you met?
I went to grade school and jr high with a couple of 2nd cousins. I grew up in a small town where I couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a relative. I know a few 1st once removed. A couple of third cousins via genealogical research - during which I discovered I worked with a 9th cousin.
How spread out geographically are your First Cousins?
we are all over North America. Until our parents (greatest) generation all my family was from a four county area in upstate NY-PA.
Do your children (assuming you have any) know their first cousins?
no kids. Step-kids don’t know their cousins.
How many generations of your family still have living members?
Four if you count my step-granddaughter. Five if you count a first cousin who is a GG-grandfather and made my mother a GGG-Aunt.
I have no first cousins, but I am pretty close to most of my dad’s 1st cousins on his mother’s side (my paternal grandmother). My grandma was one of 10 children and my dad had 22 1st cousins on his mom’s side. Out of the 23 (22 plus my dad) cousins, only two moved more than 50 miles away from our hometown in North Georgia. 21 stayed here in North Georgia, one moved to Indiana to be a part of a religious cult (no kidding- look up ‘Branhamism’ for more info) and one moved to Sodom & Gomorrah (also known as Los Angeles) to pursue a career in television. I’m the only family member that has any contact with the one in L.A. She has been shunned as a Jezebel because she lived in ‘sin’ with a man before marrying him! But what else could she do, his divorce wasn’t even final yet when she shacked up with him!?
The fatal flaw of my paternal grandmother’s family is that they’re what I call pseudo-Christians. No matter if they’re hungover, stoned or so sore they can’t sit down from being ridden by a football team the night before, they’re in church on Sunday morning goddamit!!! And they love to judge people who aren’t fake and aren’t ashmed of their lives or living a lie- case in point, my cousin in Los Angeles…she’s gorgeous, has a new Lexus SUV, married to a third-generation Hollywood producer and has a gorgeous 5-bedroom $1.4million house in Woodland Hills. The holier-than-thou hypocritical cousins who judge her- you can find them at pay-by-the-week motels, at a trashy trailer park or at least five of them have spent some time in jail…
How many Second Cousins can you name, and how many of them have you met?
Just one who happens to have exactly the same name as me.
For first cousins once removed, I do know the names of most of the children of my first
cousins on my father’s side. I know the name of only one cousin of my father (again
the same name as me – father of above), and the name of two deceased cousins of
my mother.
How spread out geographically are your First Cousins?
First cousins in CA, OR, NV, TX, OH, NC, MO
Do your children (assuming you have any) know their first cousins?
Yes most of them. there are a few he’s never met.
How many generations of your family still have living members?
with me as 0 we have -1, 0, 1, 2(if you allow grandchildren of siblings)
I have only 4 first cousins, not counting some half-cousins I’ve never met. My father was an only child but had several first cousins, none of whom I’ve seen for decades – though one became CEO of a Fortune-500 company.
My wife is from rural Thailand and her situation is opposite: we see many of her 1st cousins and a few of her 2nd cousins regularly. (She didn’t fully realize she was related to some of these 2nd cousins until I, an amateur genealogist, worked it out.) Not only is there low mobility, but a sort of village-pairing develops: many of the women 60 years ago married not husbands from ten miles away, but from the same specific village thirty miles away.
Once, my father-in-law went to the funeral of an acquaintance’s grandfather. After his explanation I realized the acquaintance was my wife’s 3rd cousin. (They didn’t know and would ignore such a distant relationship anyway.)
We have three couples living adjacent to us with an interesting relationship: Two brothers married two unrelated women. One of the wives has a brother who married the sister of the other wife. Thus, when I moved here, the kids playing with each other were all 1st cousins, though in different ways. (Two decades have passed and now there are 2nd-cousins playing with each other.)
About those “turkey cousins” (cousins of cousins who aren’t actually related) that Chronos mentioned:
An oddity (I think) in my extended family is that none of us seem to know any of these. My own immediate family is the only one (that I know of) whose extended kinfolk on both sides (my mother’s and my father’s) are known to us.
I never met, or even heard of, any kinfolk of my father’s siblings’ spouses. (Translation: My father had siblings and they had spouses, but we never knew of those spouses’ relatives.) On my mother’s side, I know even less since that whole side of the family (my immediate family excepted) all stayed “Back East”, while we and most of my father’s side all moved “Out West” (this was around about in the 1930’s and 1940’s, I think.)
Also related to this topic: According to Chinese tradition, my brother and I have loads of “nieces” and “nephews” and “great-nieces” on my mother’s side that are her cousins’ kids. This means that I am technically a great-aunt to people who are older than me. I’m 20.
