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When you are first starting your genealogy research you will come across many different relationship terms. But what do they all mean? Here is a breakdown.
Siblings: This means two people have parents in common. So brothers and sisters are siblings.
First Cousin: This is your mom or dad’s brother’s (or sister’s) child.
Second Cousin: These are the people who have the same great grandparents as you but not the same grandparents. (CORRECTED)
Third Cousin: These are the people who have the same great-great grandparents as you. (CORRECTED)
Grandnephew or Grandniece: This means a grandchild of your brother or sister.
Grand-aunt or Grand-uncle: This means a sister or brother of your grandparents.
Lineal relationships: Those people in a “direct” line in your family tree. This can go up (ascending) from you to your parents and grandparents or down (descending) from your great grandparents to your grandparents to your parents to you.
Collateral relationships: Family members linked by a common ancestor in your family tree. This could be a cousin, aunt or uncle.
I am confused. I’ve looked at this website from genealogy.com about cousins, and their explanations are different: http://www.genealogy.com/16_cousn.html
In particular, second cousins share the same great-grandparents and third cousins share the same great-great grandparents. Wouldn’t my grandma and grandpa’s child just be my aunt or uncle?
Sorry – yes 2nd and 3rd cousins somehow were written incorrectly. I updated those and noted it in the blog post.
Jennifer
Hi Jen, I’m glad to know some of these for sure. I wasn’t certain what “collateral” meant . . . I actually thought it had something to do with illegitimacy. But I’ve also heard that the right term for that is “cadet” lines.
Also, I like Grand-uncle definitely better than Great-uncle, which I’ve been using.
Thanks for this post!
Thanks for reading Mariann!