Family trees can be frustrating. Check out our easy-to-follow Family Relationship Chart, and you’ll understand all your kinfolk and cousin relationships (and even those darling Grand Aunts), without the need for a complicated Table of Consanguinity! What’s that anyway?
Genealogy classifies family relationships based on generation, and following consanguinity (a big word that means direct descendants — biological child relationships) and immediate affinal (in-law) relationships.
A direct descendent can trace their lineage by child relationships all the way back to a specific ancestor. When you share an ancestor, you are related by blood to another person.
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Click here for a pdf printable of Family Relationship Chart.
Tips for Understanding the Family Relationship Chart:
- COUSINS are all shown in orange.
- FIRST COUSINS: Share the same grandparents
- SECOND COUSINS: Share the same great-grandparents
- THIRD COUSINS: Share the same great-great-grandparents
- FIRST COUSINS ONCE REMOVED: Separated by one generation from a first cousin
- FIRST COUSINS TWICE REMOVED: Separated by two generations from a first cousin
- NON-REMOVED cousins are all on the same generational level
- REMOVED cousins can be ascendant or descendant
- ASCENDANT cousins are on earlier generational levels
- DESCENDANT cousins are on later generational levels
When you share an ancestor, you are related by blood to another person.
How Do you Define Cousins By Generational Levels?
A cousin is a child of one’s aunt or uncle, with your distant cousins being the descendants of your Grand Aunts and Grand Uncles.
- An ascendant cousin is an earlier generation than yourself.
- A descendant cousin is a later generation to you.
This gets confusing because you actually have multiple sets of removed cousins with the same name designation!
A 1st Cousin Once-Removed indicates a generation higher OR lower than yourself. Therefore, your descendant 1st cousin once-removed is the child of your first cousin, while your ascendant 1st cousin once-removed is the parent of your second cousin!
Tip to Remember: Removed simply means separated by a generational level, while your first/second/third cousins are all at the same generational level as you!
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