Tracking Relationships, Ancestral Names and Places (National Institute)

Relationships
Now that you are the family historian you will be expected to be able to tell members of your family the degree of relationship they have to another member, for example to the lady who just emailed you from Australia, or the ‘cousin-of-some-sort’ who has the family bible.

There is a simple way to calculate in your head the relationship between any two people who share a common ancestor. First decide what relation the common ancestor is to each of you. Then count the ‘G’s’ i.e., the number of greats and grand and that number is your cousinship. For example: If you share a 3rd Great Grandfather this makes 4 ‘Gs’ (great, great, great grand) and thus you are 4th cousins. If the number is different, say it is your 3rd GG and her 4th GG, then take the lower number for the cousinship and add ‘once removed’, since you are one generation ‘out-of-kilter.’ In this case you would be 4th cousins once removed. Simple ain’t it! This works for most situations that you are likely to run into with living people. For the more obscure situations there is a standard chart which is reproduced here.

Relationship Chart

Notes on using the Relationship Chart

 * The relationships all refer to Yourself on the chart.
 * Male gender has been used although both are implied.
 * Those joined by horizontal lines are siblings.
 * Those in one vertical column are in a direct lineal descent (father-son- grandson etc.)
 * Those in same horizontal row are of the same generation.
 * 1c 2r = First cousin once removed etc. The term ‘removed’ just means ‘of a different generation’. ‘Once removed’ being one generation removed from yourself.
 * To your 2GG father you are his 2GG son, likewise to your 4GG uncle you are his 4GG Nephew.
 * 1st cousins share the same grandparents, 2nd cousins the same GG parents and so on.

Instructions
1. Those of your generation and their descendants


 * Your generation includes your brother, and all 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. cousins who form the Main Cousin Line across the Chart.


 * Starting with Yourself your brother is to the right. His son is your nephew, his grandson your grand (or great) nephew etc.


 * Your father’s brother is your uncle. His son is your 1st cousin, his grandson your 1st cousin once removed, and his GG son is still your first cousin but twice removed because he is two generations different from yourself.


 * You can extend this to your grandfather’s brother and his descendants, working to the right and downwards as before.

2. Those of previous generations (above the Main Cousin Line) This is a little harder as we are not so used to it.


 * The terms 3c 2r etc. are used slightly differently above the Main Cousin Line.


 * The easiest one is 1c 1r. Your father’s first cousin is of the same generation as him, and thus ‘once removed’ from you, but he is still a 1st cousin.


 * Following this progression vertically, (you will actually be moving NE on your chart), your grandfather’s 1st cousin is your 1c 2r, and your GG father’s 1st cousin is your 1c 3r. The amount of removal changes because they are of different generations.


 * Following it horizontally from 1c 1r (with whom you share descent from your GG father), your 2c1r shares descent from your 2GG father, and your 3c 1r from your 3GG father. The cousinship changes because they share less and less common heritage.

Lists of Ancestral Names and Places
Keeping an up-to-date list of your Ancestral Surnames and Ancestral Places in your briefcase is incredibly useful in focussing your endeavours and saving time when browsing book indexes or lists of films in at your FSC, or when contacting possible cousins. The list was typed once onto the computer and then sorted two ways and given appropriate headings, and it is thus quickly updated as research proceeds. When you join a FHS you will be asked to provide at least the first list of Ancestral Surnames for publication in their journal to assist in contacting other researchers.

Ancestral Places
A variation on the Ancestral Surnames chart is the Tiny Tafel (Tafel means table in German) which is shown in the chart below. This gives RIN (Record Identification Number) as well as Soundex code, which can be obtained from the RootsWeb’s Soundex Converter is useful when using many indexes.

Calculating An Exact Birth Date
If you have an exact age in years, months and days at death you may apply the 8870 Formula devised by the Hawkins County Genealogical and Historical Society, Rogersville, Tennessee. Such details may be found on tombstones and in burial registers, especially Scandinavian ones. Say the person died on 6 May 1889 aged 71 years, 7 months and 9 days. Use the following calculation:

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online courses offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about these courses or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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