John’s mother is Martha. Martha’s father is Buford. Buford’s sister is Matilda. Matilda’s granddaughter is Jessie.
What is the relationship between John and Jessie? I’m thinking third cousins…
2nd cousins.
In other words, one of Jessie’s parents is Martha’s first cousin, correct?
Jessie & Martha are first cousins, once removed.
Second cousins
Buford and Matilda are siblings, their kids are first cousins, their grandkids are second cousins.
To figure out the degree of cousinhood, count how many generations you must go back to find the sibling relationship. Your immediate siblings can be considered your zeroth cousins. Your mother’s sister’s daughter is your first cousin. Your grandmother’s sister’s granddaughter is your second cousin, etc.
If the two people in question are not in the same generation, then the same rule applies, but add a “X times removed” for the difference of generations (regardless of direction.) So your aunt and uncle are also your first cousins once removed. Your grandmother’s sister’s daughter is a second cousin once removed, and so forth.
In some parts of the world, they might be siblings, since it is very common for cousins to marry. But they furthest relation they could be would be 2nd cousins-- ie, two generations away.
I think this is incorrect. Your mother or father’s first cousin would be your first cousin once removed, I believe.
I think this is incorrect. Your mother or father’s first cousin would be your first cousin once removed, I believe.
First cousin thrice removed, not second cousin. The first cousin of your mother or father becomes your first cousin once removed. Any issue from that becomes removed one step more.
Adding, they still remain your first cousin <X times removed>. I think there are hardly any second or third cousins anymore officially because families don’t intermarry and aren’t as large as they once were.
Nope. Geneologically speaking, your description is incorrect. A cite was posted earlier in the thread.
I think what I am about to say agrees with the cite, but here is another way to view the calculation:
I. Amy and Bob have a least common ancestor.
II. The common ancestor (CA) is Bob’s n-degree grandparent (the case where CA is the immediate parent of Bob or Amy must be handled seperately. There you get grand neices/nephews). Then we say the distance between Bob and CA is n
[Say, for example, CA is Bob’s great grandparent. In this case, the distance will be 2]
III. Same for Amy.
[Say, for example CA is Amy’s great great great great grandparent. Then the distance is 5 between Amy and CA.]
IV. Now we have two numbers. The lesser is the “type of cousin”. Their difference is the “number of times removed”.
[In our example, Bob and Amy are 2nd cousins 3 times removed.]
I heard this explination in a math-bio talk explaining how we are approximately n-cousins k-times removed from a squirrel (I forgot the values of n and k, but they were big).
The graph-theoretic calculation makes a lot of sense to me.