Granny low diff or gearbox?

[Curious Hound]

It's fairly easy. Let's say that Jane is my third great (great great great) grandmother's cousin:

1. Jane is five generations above me in the family tree, and is a cousin to my ancestor.
2. Since Jane is five generations above me, she is five generations REMOVED from me. She's my cousin five times removed
3. Jane's descendant five generations down is my FIFTH cousin.

Going the other way, my cousin (mom's sister's daughter) has three children. Those three children are my cousins ONCE removed. If I had children, they would be second cousins to my cousin's children.

Clear as mud. Right?

That does seem to simplify it for me. I have never had it explained. Basically, anybody outside the most immediate relationships is a cousin of some sort. What confuses it for me is the way certain people have been named for me in the past. For example, my dad's aunts. Mom and dad always called them Aunt Francis and Aunt Sophie. So my brother and I grew up calling them Aunt Francis and Aunt Sophie. My cousin's kids Call me Uncle Eric and I always considered them to be nieces and nephews.

Family stuff is complicated.

 

[fastpakr]

It's fairly easy. Let's say that Jane is my third great (great great great) grandmother's cousin:

1. Jane is five generations above me in the family tree, and is a cousin to my ancestor.
2. Since Jane is five generations above me, she is five generations REMOVED from me. She's my cousin five times removed
3. Jane's descendant five generations down is my FIFTH cousin.

Going the other way, my cousin (mom's sister's daughter) has three children. Those three children are my cousins ONCE removed. If I had children, they would be second cousins to my cousin's children.

Clear as mud. Right?

'Removed' applies generationally in the up or down direction. So you and Jane would be 'fifth removed' to each other.
The 'nth' cousin thing applies to how many generations up or down you find the relation. First cousin is through parents, second is through grandparents, etc. It's the number of generations to the nearest common ancestor.

It's confusing as all get out.

 

[1990RangerinSK]

That does seem to simplify it for me. I have never had it explained. Basically, anybody outside the most immediate relationships is a cousin of some sort. What confuses it for me is the way certain people have been named for me in the past. For example, my dad's aunts. Mom and dad always called them Aunt Francis and Aunt Sophie. So my brother and I grew up calling them Aunt Francis and Aunt Sophie. My cousin's kids Call me Uncle Eric and I always considered them to be nieces and nephews.

Family stuff is complicated.

Your dad's aunts are your GREAT aunts. So, you would be right to call them Aunt Sophie and Aunt Francis.

I have a friend who's kids called me Mr. <first name>. That drove me up the wall. When I was a child, my mom had a really close friend, that I called auntie, so I asked the kids to call me Uncle <first name>. It seems fairly common that children would call their parents' close friends Auntie or Uncle, so if you and your cousin are really close friends, then calling you Uncle gives you a title less formal than Mr, but still showing you the respect due to you as an elder.

If you think all of THAT is complicated, my mom has been married three times, and my dad has been married twice. I have five parents (three of them being step), TEN grandparents (six of them step).

Even more complicated and fun, My ex wife's oldest aunt on her mother's side was nearly 20 years older than her (my ex's) mother, and she had a big family. She has first cousins her mother's age. In there somewhere, there is an uncle/nephew relationship where the nephew is older than the uncle.

Even more fun, in a lot of families, names are repeated. My uncle and brother have the same name. My grandfather, his grandfather and grandpa's uncle all have the same name.

I do a lot of family history research, so I'm fairly familiar with how family relationships work.

 

[1990RangerinSK]

'Removed' applies generationally in the up or down direction. So you and Jane would be 'fifth removed' to each other.
The 'nth' cousin thing applies to how many generations up or down you find the relation. First cousin is through parents, second is through grandparents, etc. It's the number of generations to the nearest common ancestor.

It's confusing as all get out.

View attachment 63848

It's only confusing if you lose track of the relationships.

 

[Curious Hound]

 

[RustyShackleford94]