How are we related? Cousins, "removed", and great-aunts explained
Every family has that moment at a reunion: someone points across the room and asks, “Wait - how are we actually related?” Cue five relatives confidently giving five different answers. Cousins, second cousins, “once removed”, great-aunts - the words get thrown around, but almost nobody’s sure what they really mean. This guide clears it up in plain English, and then shows you the shortcut for never having to work it out by hand again.
Start with the one word everyone uses loosely: cousin
In everyday speech “cousin” covers a small crowd of people. In genealogy it’s more precise, and the precision is genuinely useful. The key question is always: what ancestor do the two people share, and how many generations back is it?
- First cousins share a set of grandparents. Your first cousin is the child of your aunt or uncle. You’re both two steps from the same grandparents.
- Second cousins share a set of great-grandparents. Their grandparent and your grandparent were siblings.
- Third cousins share great-great-grandparents - and so on. Each “great” you add to the shared ancestor bumps the cousin number up by one.
So the cousin number is really just a measure of how far back you both reach to find your most recent common ancestor. First = grandparents, second = great-grandparents, third = one more “great”. That’s the whole pattern.
Now the confusing bit: “removed”
“Removed” is the word that sends everyone running, but it means something simple: a difference in generation. If two cousins are on the same generational level - you and someone who’s also two steps from your shared grandparents - there’s no “removed” at all. They’re just first cousins, full stop.
“Removed” only appears when the two people sit on different levels of the family tree. Each generation of difference adds one “removed”:
- Your first cousin once removed is your first cousin’s child (one generation down from you) - or your parent’s first cousin (one generation up). Same “first cousin” relationship, shifted by one generation.
- Twice removed means a two-generation gap - your first cousin’s grandchild, for example.
A neat way to hold it in your head: the number (first, second, third) tells you how far back the shared ancestor is; “removed” tells you how many generations apart the two people are from each other. Two separate measurements, two separate words.
Aunts, uncles, and their “great” and “grand” versions
These follow their own tidy logic:
- Your parent’s sibling is your aunt or uncle.
- Your grandparent’s sibling is your great-aunt or great-uncle (some families say “grand-aunt” - same person).
- Each generation further back adds another “great”: your great-grandparent’s sibling is your great-great-aunt.
And it runs the other way too. Your sibling’s child is your niece or nephew; their grandchild is your great-niece or great-nephew.
Why any of this is worth knowing
Beyond winning the reunion argument, getting relationships right keeps your family tree honest. When you know that two people are second cousins, you know they must share great-grandparents - which is a handy sanity check when you’re piecing branches together. If your tree implies a relationship that the labels say is impossible, you’ve probably attached someone to the wrong parent.
The shortcut: let the tree do the maths
Here’s the part that saves your sanity. You don’t actually have to count generations on your fingers. In the RootsPrint editor, the built-in relationship calculator does it for you: pick any two people in your tree, and it names the exact kinship between them - “first cousins once removed”, “great-aunt”, “second cousins” - instantly and correctly.
It’s genuinely one of those small features you end up using constantly. Building a big tree and lost track of how a distant branch connects back to you? Select the two people and let the app spell it out. No charts, no counting, no reunion arguments.
Try it on your own family
The fastest way for any of this to finally stick is to see it on people you actually know. Add yourself, a cousin, and a couple of relatives from an older generation, then ask the calculator how each pair is related. Watching “first cousin once removed” attach itself to a real face does more than any diagram.
Open the editor to try it, and when you want to keep going, the rest of our guides cover building, backing up, and printing your tree.