The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
Relationships can be confusing,Ìformidable aspect of genealogy
This story was published June 7, 1998
There must be a dozen or more arrangements of the song, I'm My Own Grandpa, which tells of a man who, well, became his own grandfather in a bizarre and fictional string of events.
A young man marries an older widow who has a grownup daughter who marries his father. This means his father was also his son-in-law, and his stepdaughter became his mother.
When the young man became the father of a boy, his son was his father's brother-in-law, which made the baby his father's uncle. The baby also was the brother of the widow's grown daughter, who was of course the baby's father's stepmother.
Next, the father's wife had a son. . .
Oh, it's too complicated to explain. Suffice it to say the young man's wife became his grandmother too. Being as his wife also was his grandmother, he obviously was his own grandpa.
Fortunately, real families aren't quite that complicated. But relationships are nonetheless one of the formidable and confusing aspects of genealogy. Even genealogists sometimes labor over what to call specific relationships.
We sometimes hear the term, "direct ancestor." That's a bit redundant because all ancestors are direct. People who aren't direct aren't ancestors. Same thing in reverse for descendants.
Perhaps the confusion comes from the term "direct-line" relationships. The key being that all of our relatives aren't direct. But all of our ancestors and descendants are.
Father, mother, grandfather, great-grandmother - these are ascending direct-line relatives. Son, daughter, grandson, great granddaughter - these are descending direct-line relatives. Brothers and sisters share a unique relationship in that they both descend directly from the same two parents and are of the same generation.
Most other relationships are collateral. This means the related individuals descend from a common ancestor, but descend from different lines below that common ancestor. This is where all the aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins hang out. And this is where confusion often enters the picture.
Bob Day and I share common ancestors in our grandfather, Charles C. Day, and grandmother, Ada Rene Barnes. But we cousins enjoy a collateral relationship because Bob is a son of my Uncle Russel and I am the son of Lyle Keith.
Relationships get tricky when we start calculating collateral relationships in which the generations differ. Bob and I are of the same generation so we're called first cousins. But what is the relationship between Bob's son, Steven, and me?
We are cousins, once removed, because we are one generation apart. Removed is the term applied to second cousins, third, fourth, and so-on.
The rule on removed cousins is that the numbers - second, third, fourth, etc., - stand for the number of generations between cousins. For instance, my newest granddaughter, Hanna, would be my cousin Bob's cousin twice removed.
Don't confuse removed cousins with second or third cousins.
Removed cousins are quite another critter. So where do they come in? Here the number, second, third, fourth, etc., refers to the number of generations between them and the common ancestor.
Thus, my cousin Bob's son Steven and my children are second cousins and Bob and my grandchildren are cousins twice removed.
And this is just the easy stuff. Just imagine what happens when cousins marry. My grandfather, C. C. Day, and his brother, my great- uncle Will, married sisters; Ada Rene and Hattie Barnes. Their children were double cousins. I have the impression that was a lot more common a hundred years or more ago, but it still happens.
Finally, a reader recently asked me to explain great-aunts and great-nephews and that sort of thing. Great in this context doesn't refer to their wonderful character, even if they are wonderful people. It is simply that my grandfather's or grandmother's brothers and sisters are my great-aunts and great-uncles. My great-grandfather's or great-grandmother's brothers and sisters are my second great-aunts and second great-uncles.
Similarly, my siblings' grandchildren are my grandnieces and grandnephews, and so on.
We could go on, but I'd better stop before someone becomes their own grandpa.
Many a genealogist has to consult a chart to figure relationships, and I'm one of them. Fortunately, many computer software programs for genealogy will calculate these relationships faster than you could pucker for a kissing cousin.
The next meeting of the Tri-City Genealogical Society will be a long and special workshop on three topics Wednesday at the Harry Kramer Senior Center in Richland.
Ann Hemmert, a Spokane genealogist, will conduct a workshop on "Back to Genealogy Basics," beginning at 1 p.m.
Donna Potter Phillips, genealogy lecturer and columnist, also of Spokane, will present workshops at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on "Overcoming Stone Walls" and "Understanding Family Search."
These workshops will cover databases included in the Family Search computer software program recently released by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
For more information on the workshops, call 375-3316.