So I Married My Cousin...And I Work For Another?
By Gene Blueblood
(September 26, 1999)
Yes, I confess... I married my cousin. And yes, being from the South, I have heard ALL the jokes about cousins marrying cousins. In fact, I've heard a better one: "If your parents get divorced, are they still brother and sister?"
My wife, Mary, is my ninth cousin (once removed). We are both descendants of John Taliaferro (1656-1720) of Virginia. Mary's line is through his daughter, Elizabeth, while mine is through his son, Capt. Richard Taliaferro. Okay, you can breathe easy now, knowing we aren't first cousins, huh?
A total of 10 generations separate our blood lines, but sometimes I wonder if some of our similarities aren't a result of genetics rather than from our years of living together. However, "Genealogy and Genetics" is a whole 'nother topic, and what we are concerned with this time out is: How to Determine Those Relationships.
Few people have trouble figuring out relationships. It is when they start trying to calculate "cousinship" and "times removed" that they have difficulty. A cousin is fairly obvious ...it's your aunt or uncle's child. "Removed" is a little harder to grasp, but means the two people are of different generations. Your aunt or uncle's grandchild is "one generation removed" from you, and becomes your cousin (once removed). To your children, they are "second cousins".
Take a look at the chart I've drawn below. It may look complicated to the novice, but soon you'll have no trouble determining relationships with any combination of descendants up to the fourth generation and beyond.
Here's how it works: Pick two people who are known to be descended from the same ancestor, technically called a 'Common Progenitor'. For the first descendent, go down the left side (outside row) of the diamond until you find their relationship to your common ancestor, like 2nd great grandson (2GG). Do the same on the right side of the diamond (outside row) for the second person, perhaps a grand niece or nephew (GN). Then trace the intersection between the two people to form a diamond using the inside rows, and you have their relationship. In this case, 2nd cousins once removed.
With practice, it becomes a snap to quickly and easily determine your relationship to someone. Bookmark this page for when you run across a "relative" online. Don't forget it's here while surfing web sites or reading through genealogy mailing lists or USENET newsgroups. You'll really impress your new found "relative" by immediately letting them know that you're ninth cousins (once removed).
Think it's not likely that you'll find your family online? I've found two third cousins I'd never met or heard of, and a couple of other people who are related by marriage, just in the past six months. In fact, it is conceivable that you've married a relative yourself.
Check this out. Not only are my wife and I cousins, but we're also both related (5th cousins, in my case) to our esteemed publisher, Laura Buddine, who is also related to Capt. Richard Taliaferro through his daughter Mary Hardin Taliaferro.
If your family averaged just two kids per generation, that would add up to over a thousand people in the past 300 years or so, which doesn't seem like a lot. My family is MUCH bigger than that, though. The average could be closer to 3-4 children, and some of my ancestors had 10 or 12 each. In 10 generations, this could be upwards of 350,000 people related to me (or you). One of those 350,000 could be calling you to the dinner table right now.
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