In a message dated 4/24/01 10:31:59 AM Mountain Daylight Time, webachel@wolf.co.net writes: << That's an interesting expression ... "Shirt-tail" cousin. Can someone elaborate on that more to explain how it came about? I've always heard the use of it in conversation with the older folks that have past on but never really understood the meaning. Is it really a cousin or someone who just claims to be a cousin due to the familiarity with the family? I hope I asked that correctly! >> In our family, there are both "shirt-tail cousins" and "shirt-tail kin". Each is just a short way of saying that there is a not-by-blood relationship, without going into all the details. A few examples, from the simple to the somewhat complicated: 1. My cousin's spouse is my cousin-by-marriage. No jargon needed here, because I'm referring to an indiviual who married a blood relative. 2. My cousin's cousin & I are "shirt-tail cousins". Although we share no grandparents, we are part of an extended family linked by marriage. The relationship itself is easy to explain, so the term doesn't some into play very often. 3. When my best friend's uncle's brother-in-law's Ggrandson married my grandmother's first-cousin's brother-in-law's Ggranddaughter, my friend & I became "shirt-tail kin". That's four blood-lines linked by three marriages in different generations. In short, "shirt-tail ______" means someone who's part of the extended family but not directly related by blood. In terms of genealogy, we all know the value of locating a distant cousin -- sometimes I've learned as much or more from shirt-tail kin! It all depends on which lines have had genealogists or family historians and what information they've passed down. Sharon McAllister