What do you call your cousins cousin?

[Anonymous]

What do you call your cousins cousin? So you’re both related to that cousin by blood, your cousins mum is your auntie by blood, and your cousins dad is their cousins uncle by blood?

[NamerOfStars]

Usually just "cousin"- it's easier that way. Now, I know they do it differently in Europe (not sure about the rest of the world), and like most things Europeans do differently, their method is more complex and not any better (I'm excepting things like their habit of using periods when they want commas; that's just stupid). Here in the States, you search for the lowest-generation common ancestor and count the G's. Thus, the children of my uncle Larry (if I had one) would be my first cousins, because while we had different parents, we shared a (or more commonly a set of, but only one is strictly necessary) grandparent (who we'll call Linda)- one G, so first.

Now, if Linda has a sister named Lucy, and Lucy has grandkids, what are they to us? Well, we don't share parents OR grandparents (unless our family tree is weirdly intertwined), but we DO have a common great-grandparent (or two), which is two G's- second cousins.

Simple enough so far, but what about great-aunt Lucy's kids? Or the kids of Larry's children? Well, these both work the same way: when there's a generational disparity, you count the G's from the lower generation to get the degree of BLOOD distance, then get the temporal distance by counting the generational gap: in both cases, they're second cousins (two G's) once removed (since you're one generation apart).

What makes it confusing is that generation doesn't necessarily correlate with age (since people can have children for a big chunk of their lifetime, and the effect gets multiplied the more generations are involved); I've got cousins of younger generations whose *kids* are older than me. And if you have remarriages, or marriages of different generations, working out the proper rankings can be a pain and a half. Just going with "cousin" if you're not sure makes it MUCH easier.

[Guy13]

Too close to the family tree to be swinging from the branch, Monkey 🙈 🙉 🙊

[Asker]

What do you mean

[Guy13]

Are you thinking about dating yiur cousin-cousin ⁉️

[Wise4myage]

Second Cousin.

[J2ohhhhh]

Myself