Is it 2nd Cousin or 1st Cousin Once Removed?

[MickinMD ★]

With all the ancestry stuff I've been looking through, I kept running across stuff like "1st cousin once removed" and was confused about what it meant - compared to 2nd cousin.

I always thought that each generation down from your 1st cousin was 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin, etc.  I was wrong.

My 1st cousin's son Jason is not my 2nd cousin, he's my 1st cousin once removed.  Jason's son is my 1st cousin twice removed.  The once, twice, etc. removed refer to the family generational difference for relations to great uncle's or great aunt's children - it gets more complicated beyond that. So your great aunt's son Bill, who is your father's 1st cousin, is also your 1st cousin once removed since he's one generation different than you. But Bill's son is the same generation as you but not a1st cousin: he's your 2nd cousin.

There's an excellent explanation of all kinds of cousin possibilities by Better Homes and Gardens here: https://www.bhg.com/health-family/reunions/activities/cousins-chart/

It also explains things like great aunts, which are technically correctly "grand aunts" but few use that title - even the chart below has "great aunt."

But it's much easier to have this chart to refer to while reading the webpage (pdf version here: https://static.onecms.io/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/sites/37/2019/06/06230238/bhg-cousins-chart-family-relationships.pdf):

 

 

 

[Kzoo]

I did not need to know this.

#ihaveaheadache

[late]

Don't think it matters if you're not screwing them.

At least, that's my 2 cents.

[shootingstar]

25 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

With all the ancestry stuff I've been looking through, I kept running across stuff like "1st cousin once removed" and was confused about what it meant - compared to 2nd cousin.

I always thought that each generation down from your 1st cousin was 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin, etc.  I was wrong.

My 1st cousin's son Jason is not my 2nd cousin, he's my 1st cousin once removed.  Jason's son is my 1st cousin twice removed.  The once, twice, etc. removed refer to the family generational difference for relations to great uncle's or great aunt's children - it gets more complicated beyond that. So your great aunt's son Bill, who is your father's 1st cousin, is also your 1st cousin once removed since he's one generation different than you. But Bill's son is the same generation as you but not a1st cousin: he's your 2nd cousin.

There's an excellent explanation of all kinds of cousin possibilities by Better Homes and Gardens here: https://www.bhg.com/health-family/reunions/activities/cousins-chart/

It also explains things like great aunts, which are technically correctly "grand aunts" but few use that title - even the chart below has "great aunt."

But it's much easier to have this chart to refer to while reading the webpage (pdf version here: https://static.onecms.io/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/sites/37/2019/06/06230238/bhg-cousins-chart-family-relationships.pdf):

 

 

 

Ok, so help me quickly:  so my nephew's 2 baby children:   my great-nephew and my great-niece????   They are ages 2 yrs. & 3 months old.

[MickinMD ★]

1 hour ago, shootingstar said:

Ok, so help me quickly:  so my nephew's 2 baby children:   my great-nephew and my great-niece????   They are ages 2 yrs. & 3 months old.

It's the 2nd column from the left running down to the bottom in the chart. Technically, they are your grandnephew and grandniece, but it's acceptable and probably much more common to say great nephew and great niece.