What Are Relatives?
In its basic sense, relatives are members of your immediate family where you have blood relations. Some people may say that your godparents are relatives, but this point of view is often societal in nature and does not necessarily mean that they are actually your relatives, unless your godparents are also related by blood. The term "relatives" also extends to nature and the relationships that different animals have to each other genetically.
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The Immediate or Nuclear Family
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In the U.S., the modern nuclear family unit usually consists of a mother and father and their children. Most children in Western cultures consider their parents and siblings to be their "family unit." Grandparents on the maternal and paternal side of the family are regarded as members of the immediate family in a number of Eastern cultures, and they live with their children and grandchildren in many cases. In some cases where parents re-marry and decide to have other children, the child of your father or mother is also considered a relative since you share the same bloodline from one parent. Although the genetic relationship is absent, the new parent is known as a "step-parent." A child of your parent from another husband or wife is usually called a "half-brother," indicating that you only have one common parent.
Extended Family
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Cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents are all part of your extended family and considered relatives as well. Your uncles and aunts have the same bloodline as your mother or father, showing kinship among extended family. Cousins---who are children of aunts and uncles---are also members of the extended family. Grandparents are the parents of your parents and each successive generation adds a "great" to the name; the parents of grandparents are called "great-grandparents."
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Distant Relatives and Relatives by Law
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Distant relatives, although you may not hear from them often or may have never even met them, are still considered relatives since they share a portion of the same bloodline that you have. For example, the cousins of your parents are still your relatives, although the blood ties are not that extensive when compared with your nuclear and extended family.
Marriage is a way to gain relatives. Although there can be no blood relations between you and your in-laws, by law, your spouse's mother and father also become your parents. The siblings of your spouse also become your relatives, although the blood ties no longer play a part.
Genes and its Relationship to the Idea of Relatives
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When looking from the perspective of blood ties, genes play a major role on who we consider our relatives. The degree of relation is generally the best indicator of the number of genes shared between two people. A person shares 50 percent of his DNA with each of his parents. As we venture further into the distant family, the degree of genetic similarity reduces drastically.
Expanding the definition of what a relative truly means is also possible, as we most often hear that humans have distant relatives in the animal kingdom. A similar DNA sequence has been observed between humans and many other mammals, which leads to the assumption that we share a common ancestry with other creatures. A distinct example of this genetic homology is the fact that humans share 98 percent of their genes with chimpanzees, sometimes referring to them as our distant relatives.
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