A few weeks ago my mother gave me a bit of a turn by phoning me up to announce I had become a great aunt. This was a bit of a shock, since my oldest nephew is a bit young to be a father. Anyway, what she meant was that my cousins daughter had had her baby. My mother is the new mother's great aunt so assumed this made me a great aunt too. In fact I am the new baby's first cousin twice removed, because his grandfather is my first cousin. So this is how to understand it (a bit of paper helps): start with children of siblings - first cousins or 'cousins german'. they have the same grandparents. Any complete step down from this is one of the numbered cousin relationships. ie If you and your cousin have children, this new generation are second cousins, and share the same great grandparents. The next step down are third cousins etc. Whenever the steps get out of kilter, then you have a 'removed', and you always start from the top, ie the last place you had a straightforward cousin relationship, rather than working backwards from the furthest removed generation. A third cousin once removed is third cousins plus a generation extra on one side, NOT third cousins minus a generation, which is second cousins once removed. If your first cousin has a child, you and that child are first cousins once removed. If you then have a child, that child is the second cousin of your cousin's child, and first cousin once removed of your cousin. Hope this helps and xxx help me if I've got any of it wrong! Judy ---------- >From: "Judy Dawe" <dawejudy@charter.net> >To: SCT-ROXBURGH-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: Re: [SCT-ROX] RELATIONSHIPS. >Date: 10, Fri Sep, 2004, 8:38 pm > > have yet to understand > the difference "between second cousin" and "first cousin twice removed".