My sister's daughter is my niece. Are her children my great nieces and nephews, or are they my nieces and nephews once removed? I think they are my great nieces and nephews and I am their great uncle.

My son and my sister's daughter are first cousins. Are my sister's daughter's children first cousins once removed to my son or are they second cousins? I think they are first cousins once removed.

In the first case, I think I am a great uncle to my niece's children because they are a whole generation further from me. In the second case, I think that my sisters daughter's children are first cousins once removed to my son because there is 1/2 generation separating them (my son and my nieces kids are not on the same generation line). If my son has kids, his kids and my niece's kids will be on the same generation line and therefore be second cousins.

Does anyone know how this works?

 

Hey Rob,

We've never gone with the "second cousin once removed" thing in our area.

My niece's child will be my great niece. (I like being GREAT Lainey). My son will be that child's second cousin, since the mother is his first cousin. That's kind of the way we have answered the "how are you related" question in our family.

 

Hi Lainey

Here's the question. I always thought that relationships like grandparent, parent, child or uncle/aunt, niece/nephew were verticle. By that I mean that one person in the relationship is on one generation line while the other person is on the next. For example, my niece is on generation below me and her kids are one generation below her therefore I am her uncle (one generation) and her kid's great uncle (two generations). I think we agree on this.

I have always thought of cousin as a horizontal relationship. By that I mean two cousins are on the same generation line. Therefore my son and my sister's daughter are first cousins because they are on the same generation line. Taken one step further, My sister's daugher's kids and my son's kids (when he has them) would be second cousins because they are on the same generation line and are the second generation away from the original blood relationship (my sister and I). The confusing part is what is the relationship between my son and my sister's daughter's kids. If I read you correctly, you consider them second cousins. You may be correct, but they are not on the same generation line, and only one is two generations removed from the original blood relationship. That's why I thought they'd be first cousins once removed.

By the way, these questions are now coming up because of something now happening in my family. My older sister and I have not seen or talked to each other for the last 20 years. She has not had any contact with the rest of the family for that same time period. Without going into the gory details I'll just say that she did some horrible things, and was badly in need of professional care. Unfortunately, we didn't see her son or daughter in that time either. Her daughter is now grown and has three kids of her own. My older sister, because of jealousy or simply out of a need to control, had a knock down drag out fight with her daughter. They haven't talked for over two years. My older sister has never seen her youngest granddaughter.

Needless to say, my niece needed to have some family and reached out to my mother and father. In the months before he died, my father was thrilled to have regained a granddaughter and to have gotten to know his great grand children. It made both him and my mother very happy. For a little while their visits helped my father forget his pain.

Next Saturday is my great niece's third birthday. We've seen them in the two years since the reconciliation, but we've not been close. Liz and I decided to do something about that, so we are going to her birthday party just so that the kids will know that they have us around. It's time.

My older sister and her husband are fools. They have cut themselves off from all of us and from their kids and grand kids. For what she did, I will never reconcile with her, but she should know her kids and grand children. She is a fool and she will be alone in her old age. I wonder if anyone will go to her funeral when the time comes. I doubt it.

Sadly, I suppose every family has a story like this.

Anyway, that's why I'm curious about the relationships.

 

Here is a Wikipedia Relationship Chart. Maybe it will shed some light on famililial relationships. We never used the "once, twice, removed" reference either and I never really understood it. We used first cousin, second cousin, third cousin (and then its too far away to count) . We also used great aunt, great grandmother, etc. and added a great for each generation back:


Relationship Chart

 

I'm with Val. After second cousin, third cousin, hard to figure out the actual relationship, but I see what you are saying Rob as far as the generation goes.

I'm, sorry about the situation with your sister. But as far as her daughter and her children and their relationship to you, that's easy they are family, plain and simple.


With the situation with her mother, I'm sure your niece will appreciate you and Liz being there for her.

 

Yes, Rob, I'm afraid dysfunctional families are fairly common. I think it's wonderful you are reaching out. I've done similar things, with mixed results. But in the cases where it's successful, it's definitely worth it.

 

Yes, I think that is exactly right.

Thanks Lainey.

 

Val

Thanks for the chart. I think it confirms what I said about the generational lines, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I like Lainey's relationship chart, "Family".

 

Call me stupid. I honestly can not begin to figure that chart out.

Anyways Rob, if you have six toes and the kids have six toes, it must be family.

 

^^ It does sort of leave one: