by Pa Rock
Collector of Dead Relatives
Two weeks from today I will be in my second full day of immersion at THE (Mormon) Library in Salt Lake City. The famed Mormon Library (officially the "Family Search Library" and formerly the "Family History Library") is owned and operated by Family Search, the genealogical arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka, the LDS - and it contains the world's largest collection of family history matter.
In anticipation of my upcoming week at THE Library, I thought this might be a good time to start getting my head back into the world of genealogy, a passion that I have ignored for the past couple of years. Somewhere there is an hourglass with my name engraved on it, and I suspect that it is just about empty - so if I am going to wrap-up my family tree projects, it's time to get busy.
As a way of getting my head back to where it needs to be for this upcoming trip, I aim to focus today on degrees or levels of cousinhood, something which I studied and mastered in just a few short hours many years ago. Today there was an article on the internet explaining how some famous celebrities are (or were) related to Presidents of the United States. One of the pairs that the article cited was actor Tom Hanks and his third cousin, four times removed, Abraham Lincoln.
So, just what the heck is a third cousin, four times removed? If you'll stick with me for awhile, I will try and get you there.
Most of us grew up with cousins - the children of our parents siblings. Any natural children of siblings are generally known as cousins, or first cousins. When those children mature and have children of their own, those children of first cousins are known as "second cousins" in their relationships to one another, and if those second cousins reproduce their children are third cousins to the children of their parent's second cousins - and so forth on down the line.
Another way of looking at it is this: first cousins share a set of grandparents, second cousins share a set of great-grandparents, and third cousins (such as Tom and Abe) share a set of great-great grandparents - in this case probably the "Hanks" grandparents of Honest Abe's mother, Nancy HANKS LINCOLN). If Tom Hanks had been born in the early 1800's like Lincoln - instead of a century-and-a-half later - he and Abe probably would have been third cousins, end of story.
But it didn't work out that way, and Tom's line kept extending way on past his presidential relative, That doesn't mean that all of those who came later in Tom's line were not related to the famous President, for indeed they were, but as Tom's line kept extending, the famous relative remained parked in the 19th century - and that distance between one relative who is a fixture and another relative whose line has kept descending, is measured differently. Those in the later generations beyond the key figure (Abe Lincoln) are measured in generations of removal.
Abraham Lincoln's "third cousin" in the Hanks line would have been one of Tom's g-g-grandparents, making Tom's generation four times removed from the generation that contained Abraham Lincoln.
And the common ancestors connecting the two lines would have been Lincoln's g-g-grandparents and Tom Hanks' g-g-g-g-g-g-grandparents.
As a simpler matter, that same article on the internet today stated that actor Brad Pitt and President Barack Obama are ninth cousins, which would mean that they shared a set of eighth-great-grandparents.
If all of that sounds like gobbledygook, blame it on the messenger. Some people learn better from charts and visuals than they do from long-winded diatribes. There are several really good cousin charts on the internet, including this one from FamilySearch.org:
Most people as they begin researching their family history focus on building family trees which in turn focus on establishing who their grandparents were as far back as possible. The grandparents form the "branches" on the "family tree." However while climbing around in those trees, one should also focus on the children of each generation of grandparents - the cousins - because that's where some of the most interesting tales are waiting to be discovered - and that's where the outlaws are most likely to be hiding out. So far I have dug up two cousins buried beneath my family tree who were murderers - and one kidnapper. They weren't royalty, or even famous celebrities or politicians, but they did leave their foul marks in the world and will be remembered for their villainy.
We didn't choose our families, and they didn't choose us. But we can carry family stories forward, and to do that properly we should be able to explain relationships and exactly how they came to be. Genealogy is more than just trees, it's weeds, too.
2 comments:
Very well explained. Let me add a little fun to the mix. My great-grandfather Randall had a brother named Felix. Those two brothers each married one of the two Lee sisters, Mary Ann and Sarah, creating a double mix of in-laws, uncles and aunts. So, Felix and Sarah were my grandfather's double uncle and double aunt. My grandfather would have been double first cousins with Felix and Sarah's son, Chase Randall. I don’t think Chase had any children, but my grandfather did, and his son did (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this). So that makes Chase my double first cousin, twice removed. I think.
Have a good trip to the Salty City. While you're there, look east to the Wasatch mountains and try to see the wave cut terraces near the base of the mountains. They represent the various levels of the freshwater lake that was there in the basin about 20,000 years or so ago. Lake Bonneville eventually overflowed its basin, partially draining, and later drying. We call that remnant the Great Salt Lake.
Thanks, Ranger Bob. I always enjoy Salt Lake, a beautiful city steeped in wonderful scenery - and the people there are as nice as you will encounter anywhere.
My grandfather, Charles Macy, and his brother Jack married a pair of Nutt sisters - so not only do I have a bunch of double-cousins in my family tree - like you do - but I also have plenty of Nutts! (In fact, my grandmother's name was Hazel!)
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