Genealogy Chat

Do yourself a favour and go to this webpage - it will work it all out for you. http://www(.)mormonhaven(.)com/relchart(.)htm (remove brackets) Dea x

As some people count the removal UP and others count the removal DOWN, I suspect there are FOUR correct answers, but as a mathematician, all I can say is that that £10 note was worth a darn sight more a few years ago.

The easiest way is to work out who is the closest common ancestor to both people, then count the number of ''G''s in each person's relationship to that person: eg: if the closest common ancestor is a great-grandparent, then that's 2 G's and therefore they are 2nd cousins. If there are a different number of G's for each of the two individuals, then take the lowest one and then the difference between the two is the number of times removed: Eg: common ancestor is person 1's great-grandfather (2 G's) and is person 2's great-great-grandfather (3 G's). Lowest number of G's is 2 therefore 2nd cousins. Difference betwen the G's is 1, therefore 2nd cousins once removed! Clear as mud? In answer to your original question, Jim - then Merry is right: you would only be related to Ian if you have a common ancestor with him, which is not necessarily the case of course. Even if you did, you still wouldn't be able to work out the relationship from the info provided, as you need to know which way round the ''removed'' bits are! Richard

I stand corrected, but at such a distant remove I can hardly think it is worth bothering to work it out! I have enough difficulty working out how many greats there are in most of my ancestors, let alone worry about all the cousins!!!! nell

No Nell, not at all... Second cousins have the same great-grandparents, there is no generation difference between them. 1st cousins once removed means that one person's grandparent is the other's great grandparent - i.e. it is the relationship between a person and the child of their 1st cousin. And of course you can have 6th cousins 3x removed - one person's ggggg-grandparent is the others gggggggg-grandparent!! Richard

I don't know if this will help but maybe you can figure it out from this: Ian's grandparents would be Alfred's great great grandparents. Rose

You can't have 6th cousins 3 times removed. Cousins are either 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc OR cousins once/twice etc removed. Removed just means separated by a generation (once removed) or two generations (twice removed) etc. A second cousin is the same thing as a 1st cousin once removed. nell

Might be no relation at all LOL!! My sixth cousin is third cousin to Her Majestry the Queen (LOL) but I'm not related to her!! Merry

If Alfred is Ian's 1st cousin twice removed, and my 6th cousin 3 times removed, what relation is Ian to me? Answers on a ten pound note sent to Jim Weatherall at .........