Kinship: It's All Relative

My own family research was prompted in part by trying to figure out just how I was related to Aunt Gini (my Mom's First Cousin.) And part of that quest, is figuring out just what we call these relationships. Parents, brothers, sisters, grandparent relationships are pretty straight forward. But what about all those cousins and in-laws. And what about "removes"??? How do we best define those relationships?

Because this is a question that comes up frequently when working with library/genealogy patrons, I thought we should take a look at the book that has all the answers: Kinship; It's All Relative by Jackie Smith Arnold. I have been using this resource for years and have my own copy at home.

This second edition was published in 2012. The book is available on Amazon

 and is on the shelves in the Franklin Sylvester Room at the Medina Library.

The book is only about 144 pages long, but packs a lot into those pages. Some of its highlights are:

• On overview of U.S. marriage laws. How old do you have to be? How closely related you can't be. Which states accept common-law or live-in marriages.
• Definitions of families.
• Grandparents visitation rights table and resource list.
• How names are passed on.
• Medical aspects of inheritance.
• NEW! In the back there is a chapter on same-sex marriages.

But my favorite features are the charts that help make sense out of complicated relationships. And these are what I refer patrons to all the time.

Do you want to know how closely you are related to someone? The following chart is called a Consanguity Chart. It specifically shows how closely you are related by blood:

This chart shows how closely related your are. For example, you
are just as closely related to your children as you are to your
parents. You share 50% of your DNA with them.

The above chart includes nieces and nephews.


But this is the chart that I use and refer library patrons to most frequently:

This chart helps ferret out your relationship to cousins, first cousins, second cousins once-removed etc.  I will fill it in to show you some examples. This is from my MASON family. Only the first names are given.

From this we can tell that John Sherwood and Mag/Ruth are siblings, children of John Dana.
Charlie and Jack are first cousins. Though Jack's biological mother was Mag, he was adopted by her sister, Ruth. Rose and Ruth are second cousins, and so forth, as shown in the chart.

But what relationship is Charlie to Josh, or Ruth to Stella?

To determine that, we look at Josh's direct line ancestor who is directly across from Charlie. In this example that would be Jack. That gives us the degree of cousin - First Cousins.  But Josh and Charlie are not of the same generation. We have to count how many generations apart they are to get the "removes". They are three generations apart so that makes them first cousins, three times removed.

Can you figure out the relationship between Ruth (daughter of Jack) and Stella?

The book also explains what happens when siblings from one family marry siblings from another family. They are double first cousins. For example, John Sherwood from the chart above married Dorothy Pauline. Her brother, Floyd, married Rosie, sister to John Sherwood. There isn't a good chart for this one in the book.

John Sherwood ← sibling → Rose Kathleen

     married                                 married

Dorothy Pauline ← sibling → Floyd Ernest

But I did find this one online:

Genealogy Pages by Paul Stoneburner

Using the example from above:

Charlie, Dixie and Loretta are double first cousins
and share as much DNA as siblings.
This does NOT make them siblings, though.

If you have a relationship not described above, check the book!

NEW TO THE MEDINA LIBRARY SHELVES!

Brand new to the Medina Library and still shelved with the NEW non-fiction is this book from Jonathan Scott, A Dictionary of Family History The Genealogists' ABC. This British publication offers insight into how British research differs from US research - starting with the lingo!

I have already used resources listed within to gain further insight into my TAGG/HEIGHTON families. Using the index at the Northamptonshire Archives, Heritage and History, I have discovered that William TAGG was apprenticed to a brushmaker. That is the occupation William followed when he emigrate to the US. And both Jeffrey and Joseph HEIGHTON took on apprentices for their blacksmith shops!

Anyone with British ancestry will want to check this one out!