By: Author Mercedes. Plus, learn how to figure out how many degrees removed you are from your cousins, and see examples of cousins-removed. In some families, cousins are just cousins. In genealogy, however, we like to get specific since the exact nature of a cousin relationship can be extremely important. This is one reason why it can be important to be able to calculate the exact way we are related to our relatives. A first cousin is the child of a sibling of one of your parents.

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A woman seeks to know the risks of dating—and the risk of having offspring with—a relative. I want to date a fourth cousin of mine. Is that wrong? We do not plan to have any children together, but if we did, would there be a risk of passing along a genetic defect or disorder? Your question is a surprisingly common one received by genealogy researchers, not only for dating but also for marriage. Generally, questions arise when the couple in question are second cousins sharing a great-grandparent or closer.


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If you can't keep your third cousins and your first cousins twice removed straight, you are not alone. But there's a simple way to figure out the relationships between relations. First cousins share a grandparent, second cousins share a great-grandparent, third cousins share a great-great-grandparent, and so on. The degree of cousinhood "first," "second," etc.



Commonly, " cousin " refers to a " first cousin ", a relative whose most recent common ancestor with the subject is a grandparent. Degree measures the separation, in generations, from the most recent common ancestor to one of the cousins whichever is closest , while removal measures the difference in generations between the cousins themselves. To illustrate usage, a "second cousin" is a cousin with a degree of two.