Cousins and Famous Cousins - Intro Post

Cousins.

What is a cousin? Where is a cousin? Why is a cousin?

Indeed, these are all questions.

I had some fun in a previous post where I explained how, logically, a person might be defined as their own cousin. But I was having fun; it was a logical thought experiment. What I wrote makes some sense, and may well be true depending on your point of view and points of reference. But generally speaking, someone who is your sibling or aunt or uncle or grandparent or self is referred to as such, and not as a cousin in most cases.

A cousin is simply a person you are related to, and somebody with whom you share a common ancestor. In other words, if your grandmother has grandchildren who are not you or your siblings, then these people must all be your first cousins, since your common ancestor is only two generations back from either of you. Remember, going only one generation back of course refers to people who are your parents, and any lateral relations here refer to brothers and sisters.

Also remember, if your brother is your uncle and his daughter is your grandmother, you should apply for a position in the next "The Hills Have Eyes" movie. Or that creepy X-Files episode where the lady without arms lived under that bed.

Pluto is actually a nice guy in real life.

If you and your cousin only share one grandparent instead of two, from what I understand in the USA, they technically still are just your first cousins and not your half-cousins in legal terms. I looked online, and Black's Law Dictionary said so. Although, families can refer to these relatives as half-cousins. What's the government going to do, beat you up over it? Some genealogists actually do use the term half-cousin in this manner. So these things are good to remember if you are unclear, because a half-cousin relationship is also what results when two half-siblings have children. With other people, don't be a pervert! The groups of children are then half-cousins one toward the other. So as always, if you have a question about a relationship between two people, more research is required to solve as best as possible.

There are also double cousins, which is what happens when two sets of siblings marry each other. The two siblings marry the other two siblings! Don't be a pervert! There's really nothing wrong with this; it is no societal taboo here in the USA. Two brothers marrying two sisters, or a brother-sister pair marrying a sister-brother pair. The children of these unions would then be double-cousins toward each other. We have several examples of this in our Baldwin family tree and it seems all the more to be not uncommon as I research the past. Lyman Baldwin married Bessie Siddell; these are my great-grandparents. Silas K. Baldwin married Alice Siddell; these are my great-uncle and great-aunt. Alice and Bessie's father was named Charles Siddell, one of my great-great-grandfathers, and that section of the tree is where Uncle Chap and Uncle Bing come from. But I will expound on the Siddell connections at a later date.

Step-cousins is a term sometimes used when step-children and step-parents are involved in the niece-nephew relationship. Your uncle's step-daughter would be your step-cousin. But you may or may not be biologically related, depending on her and your familial relationships with your Aunt. In case you were wondering. Don't be a pervert! Cousin-in-law is another term I have heard, referring to the spouse of one's cousin. Also, the cousin of one's spouse could be a cousin-in-law. It's the same definition for a different relationship, just like half-cousin.

So what happens after first cousins? Second cousins. And also, the end of me putting terms in bold text.

Second cousins share a great-grandparent. Pretty simple. Third cousins share a great-great-grandparent. Still not too hard. However, 15th cousins share a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent.

Oh noes! Confuse!

A neat little way to remember all this is to count the number of G words involved in the relationship to the common ancestor. If you and Cousin Frasny (what a horrible name Frasny is) had the same great-great-great-great-grandparents, then good old Frasny would be your fifth cousin, easily. There are four G's in the greats, and one for grandparents. Five G's, fifth cousins.

Let's say Frasny lived 400 years ago though and is long, dried-up, dust-in-the-wind which you may have inhaled last Tuesday, because who can say for sure?, DEAD-dead. But you and Frasny had the same ancestor. What to do? First, you can figure out how many generations you are descended from that ancestor, and then figure Frasny's. Then see if there is a difference in the number of generations you come up with for each of you.

So let's say that Frasny's grandparents were your 9th great-grandparents. That would make you first cousins 9 times removed to Frasny. The closest relationship between either of you to the ancestor is "grandparent", so you would be 1st cousins. As I understand it, the nine times removed refers to a diagonal relationship. That is, if you were to write out the generations to Frasny on a chart, and then down to you, the two rows wouldn't line up. There would be nine generations of names between your ancestor's "row" and yours. Nine times removed.

I recommend using a cousin chart or an online cousin calculator for all of this in casual use. I linked to one in a previous post, but I will put it here.

The Cousin Calculator!

This is a great resource and makes figuring out cousins very easy. You input your relationship to the ancestor, and then the person in question's relationship. Hit the little button, and it will tell you exactly how related you are.

By the way, somebody who is your 1st cousin 9 times removed can either refer to somebody who has a grandparent who is also your 9th great-grandparent, or a ninth-great-grandchild of your own grandparent. It's unlikely that you would still be alive in this case, but this distinction can become relevant if talking about, say, a 2nd cousin three times removed. There are, here again, two possible relationships for this same term, so watch out.

I think that I should also mention: if you and Frasny both had the same 9th great-grandparent, you would be 'even' 10th cousins. It is the same principle as I used above; simply count the G's. 9 greats plus 1 grand = 10. You can also be cousins with somebody multiple times, because of multiple family lines and pedigree collapse. You can know that you are 11th, 12th, and 13th cousins, each several different times-removed with the same single person, as long as you can document each line. The "closest line" refers to the lowest degree of cousin. In the above example, this would be 11th. You both would have had the same ancestor 12 generations ago, excluding yourselves.

Famous Cousins and Famous Cousin Posts

A famous cousin is just a cousin who is famous. It doesn't mean I'm always going to like the person. Our Baldwin branch is distantly related to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, so have fun with that. It does mean, though, that I will probably only focus posts on the famous cousins I like, or who are interesting to me. I can't write about somebody I can't stand or who I know nothing about, after all. These Famous Cousins posts I will do are mostly for fun, but they can also be informative. Many people who lived long ago, who were not as famous as the monarchs, like Sir Thomas Hoo or Richard FitzAlan, form many documented family connections.

These Famous Cousins posts will sometimes use the website FamousKin where applicable, so you can research further. I haven't researched every connection personally, but I have verified my line back to the Alsops and then Temperance Gilbert, and farther back. What I have seen on their site is so far accurate in this regard. So consider this my disclaimer.

Please note that many in this series of posts will only apply to you Baldwins who descend from Richard Baldwin (1622) and Elizabeth Alsop, both buried in Milford Connecticut. She is a known gateway ancestor as previously mentioned. All the family that I know personally, who either go to the Family Reunions or who I am otherwise in contact with, do descend from this line.

So if you know me for reals as a Baldwin-side relative, these people are related to you and everything will be applicable to you. If you're an internet reader who found my blog, I encourage you to see if you do go back to Richard and Elizabeth; you might be a relative of mine. If you're an internet stalker, go away already!

Also note that my Famous Cousin posts will be labelled as such, and so they can be searched for as this blog gets more and more posts.

And that's that!