How to Determine Kinship
Kinship is the nature of a relationship between two family members. Determining how you are connected to closely-related family such as your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins is fairly simple. Determining the kinship of more distant relatives, such as a great-great-grandmother or a fourth cousin is much more confusing. There is a system to determining kinship that will allow you to determine relationships at family reunions, gatherings and when designing your family tree.
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Instructions
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Determine how to designate distant grandparents. Start with your grandparents. Your grandparent's parents would be your great-grandparents. For example, your grandmother's mother is your great-grandmother. Add an additional great for each generation back. For example, your great-great-grandfather's father is your great-great-great-grandfather.
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Figure out your kinship to more distant aunts and uncles. Your aunts are your parent's sisters. Your uncles are your parent's brothers. Go one generation back. Your great-aunt is your grandmother or grandfather's sister. Your great-uncle would be one of your grandparent's brothers. Add an additional great for each generation you go back.
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Figure out your kinship with your nieces and nephews. You sibling's daughter is your niece. Your sibling's son is your nephew. If your niece or nephew has a daughter, that's your great-niece. If your niece or nephew has a son, that's your great-nephew. Add a great for each generation down.
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Determine your relationship to distant cousins. This is one of the most common and confusing forms of kinship to determine. When determining the relationship of cousins, always use a common ancestor as a frame of reference. Your aunt and uncle's children are your first cousins. First cousins always have the same grandmother. Second cousins have the same great-grandmother, but not the same grandmother. In other words, two first cousin's children would be second cousins and the children would have the same great-grandmother. Second cousin's children would be third cousins, sharing the same great-great-grandmother. This pattern would continue for each new generation of cousins.
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Identify relationships for cousins who are separated by one or more generations. When this is the case, the relationship is identified and designated with the number of generations removed. When doing this, always reference your common ancestor. An example of a relationship involving cousins separated by more than one generation would be 23-year-old Jane and her 80-year-old cousin Bob. Jane's great-great-great-grandmother is Bob's grandmother. In this example, determine if Jane and Bob are first cousins, second cousins, third cousins, etc. by determining the relationship of the cousin that is more closely related to the common ancestor. In the example above, Bob is more closely related to their common ancestor than Jane. Since Jane and Bob have Bob's grandmother as a common ancestor, Bob and Jane are first cousins. The only problem is that there are three generations between Bob and Jane. This would make them first cousins, three times removed. If there were four generations between Bob and Jane, they would be first cousins, four times removed.
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References
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