Are you my cousin?

September 8, 2005 8:21 AM

My uncle's wife has an uncle through marriage whose first cousin's grand-niece lives in my apartment building. Are my neighbor and I related?

This is a serious question based on an epiphany at a business function last night. I'm wondering whether the multiple marriage connections maintain the cousin designation. It's a small world regardless.

posted by werty to Human Relations (25 answers total)

I'm going to say: No, you're not related.

Here's how you're associated, spelled out:

Your parent's brother is married to someone whose parent's sister is married to someone whose parent's sibling's child is married to someone whose sibling's granddaughter is your neighbor. (I'm assuming that the first cousin is married to your neighbor's great-aunt or great-uncle by blood because otherwise the grandmother/father would be the cousin's sibling and thus also a cousin.)

I'm frankly amazed that the two of you figured out that this association exists at all. There are enough relationships-by-marriage involved (3) that you are definitely not related.
posted by cerebus19 at 8:30 AM on September 8, 2005

Depends how you see cousinhood. You have no ancestors in common with your neighbor/erstwhile cousin, no genes in common. However, if you ignore marriage, your neighbor is your third cousin. Your aunt (married to your blood uncle) is second cousins (by marriage) with your neighbor/cousin's parents. I don't know the rules, but it seems like you're not really related--rather, part of two separate family trees whose branches touch.
posted by chelseagirl at 8:39 AM on September 8, 2005

I would love love love to see a diagram describing this relationship. Anyone have enough ASCII-fu to produce one? It'd sure make it easier to answer the question because I have to say: my brain hurts.
posted by jdroth at 8:40 AM on September 8, 2005

the diagram is not that hard to build - it's horizontally wide, and vertically not that deep.

in short, no you are not related - the answer comes quickly it's your uncle's WIFE's uncle etc... the bloodline ends there.

you and the neighbor do not share bloodlines.
posted by seawallrunner at 8:45 AM on September 8, 2005

You're some manner of cousin, it sounds like to me. I don't think the various "by marriages" matter for that. She's your aunt's uncle's cousin's (grand-)niece.

If you really care, plot out your ancestries back to at least great-grandparents. If you don't share any, rest assured that any babies you might make are unlikely to have nine heads or look like Hapsburgs.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:49 AM on September 8, 2005

Cousin Laws - just in case any of you are wondering. This was discussed yesterday in one of my law classes.
posted by jasonspaceman at 8:51 AM on September 8, 2005

I mean, you are socially some manner of cousin, irrespective of however distant your genetic relationship is.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:53 AM on September 8, 2005

It's safe to marry her, if that's what you're getting at.
posted by bondcliff at 8:54 AM on September 8, 2005

You're not any form of cousin. Suppose your uncle got a divorce from your aunt. Or suppose your aunt (the one married to your uncle)'s aunt and her husband got divorced? In either case (and they're not the only ones) you and your neighbor would have absolutely no familial association with one-another.
posted by cerebus19 at 8:57 AM on September 8, 2005

You're not any form of cousin.

If we were talking about a bunch of old-line southerners, I'd say that werty could talk to his aunt's uncle's cousin and be given a job in his hardware store on the basis of the family connection, even if more than one hop was through marriage.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:01 AM on September 8, 2005

Response by poster: Is this to say that your uncle's wife was previously married before marrying your uncle?

I used "uncle's wife" only to denote the lack of a blood relation. My uncle (my grandmother's son) and my aunt married right out of college.

I'm still unsure whether, on a technical genealogical level, my neighbor is a) a distant relative resulting from several layers of marriage or b) just a person whose cousins married some of my cousins, creating no familial ties. I'm enjoying the responses and still not convinced one way or the other.

If it helps any, my aunt and my neighbor's mother were friends in their youth, so some level of connection does exist.
posted by werty at 9:08 AM on September 8, 2005

my almost-cousin emily and i use "almost-cousin" to describe our relationship. she is my father's father's brother's first wife's and second husband's daughter's daughter. there's no blood there, of course, but we're distant family nonetheless.
posted by judith at 10:17 AM on September 8, 2005

Diagram. It's kind of wide, as expected, so I didn't put it inline. And I see my little bit of humor in it was foreshadowed by luriete...:)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 10:55 AM on September 8, 2005

If it helps any, my aunt and my neighbor's mother were friends in their youth, so some level of connection does exist.

That certainly explains how you and your neighbor were able to figure out that there was a family association. I'm 100% sure I wouldn't recognize someone to whom I was that distantly associated by family connections if he/she came up and bit me on the nose.

Her cousins didn't marry your cousins, and if she's a relative at all, she is a very distant one. Her great-uncle or great-aunt married the cousin of your aunt-by-marriage's uncle-by-marriage. I'd say the fact that your aunt and her mother were friends once creates a much closer association between the two of you than the family connection does.
posted by cerebus19 at 11:09 AM on September 8, 2005

I like the approach that some African tribes have: If you don't have a word for it, you're not related.
posted by klangklangston at 11:14 AM on September 8, 2005

I was just dealing with the story that Keith Olbermann is a "cousin-in-law" of Mike Tyson. Really, there isn't any sort of relationship such as "cousin-in-law". Your uncle's wife is your aunt, but the bloodlines end there. There is no ancestor that the two of you have in common. She's not even technically a cousin of your aunt except by marriage.

cous·in (kŭz'ĭn) pronunciation
n.

1. A child of one's aunt or uncle. Also called first cousin.
2. A relative descended from a common ancestor, such as a grandparent, by two or more steps in a diverging line.
3. A relative by blood or marriage; a kinsman or kinswoman.

Only in the general sense (3) are you even "kin". Your (a) and (b), werty, are vague enough that they're not even really distinguishable states.

Just an FYI, I wasn't raised knowing any of my second cousins, and though we've met, there hasn't been anything exept politeness exchanged. And those are people I have a common ancestor with!
posted by dhartung at 11:15 AM on September 8, 2005

semi off topic: I was once able to introduce someone as my mother's husband's daughter's husbands' mother's husband's daughter's husband (aka the spouse of my step-sister's step-sister-in-law).


And I'll agree with everyone else that you aren't really related aside from a vague social kinship. Of course, if you guys want to call each other cousins, that's up to you.
posted by jaimystery at 11:37 AM on September 8, 2005

(husband's not husbands' they weren't poly as far as I know)
posted by jaimystery at 11:38 AM on September 8, 2005

I read the question and thought of this song (embedded QT soundfile).
posted by essexjan at 11:44 AM on September 8, 2005

Socially speaking, I'd say it depends. Have you ever run into each other at a family reunion? If so, you're family. If one of those uncles died, would you both be at the funeral? If so, you're family.

Would you never have met each other if you hadn't moved into the same building? If not, you're not family.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:55 AM on September 8, 2005

Essex - I tracked down the lyrics as I read along and got to the bottom, at any rate for those without soundcards :

Now many many years ago when I was 23
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be
This widow had a grown up daughter who had hair of red
My father fell in love with her & soon the 2 were wed
This made my dad my son-in-law & changed my very life
My daughter was now my mother cause she was my father's wife
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy
My little baby then became a brother in law to dad
And, so, became my uncle though it made me very sad
For if he was my uncle then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter who, of course was my step-mother

The rest are here
posted by TuxHeDoh at 11:58 AM on September 8, 2005

So what if I think my first cousin is really hot but she's adopted and in no way biologically related to me. Could I hit it without guilt?

Sorry for the derail
posted by Justin Case at 2:32 PM on September 8, 2005

Justin: If she's not biologically related to you, I'd say that would depend on whether or not she feels it's too weird, and, if you care, how you think your family would react if you became an item.
posted by cerebus19 at 2:56 PM on September 8, 2005

odinsdream: OmniGraffle from the Omni Group. Comes with new PowerMacs and PowerBooks. That diagram is actually fairly plain, I've made some real killers with it, and I have exactly zero artistic talent, too!

Link.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 4:11 PM on September 8, 2005

You are sixth cousins thrice removed (by marriage)

Take out the marriage, your Aunt's uncle is your Great Uncle, which makes his cousin your third cousin, then add a degree of cousin for every generation away, down to grand-niece, coming to 6. Then designate the marriages as how many times removed you are.

At least, that's what you'd be south of the mason-dixon line. My anthopology phd friend tells me that we designate kinship differently in the South...
posted by maelanchai at 6:49 PM on September 8, 2005