This is the best explanation I've seen about how to determine cousins and "removed". Jackie The cousin connection The cousin connection (and the nonsense about being "removed") begins with people having a common grandparent. Why grandparents? Because the next common person would be parents and obviously people with common parents are brother and sister! All the grandchildren of a common grandparent are first cousins. All the common great grandchildren are second cousins. Cousins and being removed has to do with counting the number of generations between two people and the common grandparent. First, though, we must review our "G's." The common grandparent = X A grandchild = GC A great grandchild = GGC A great great grandchild = GGGC A great great great grandchild = GGGGC Now, visualize all of these abbreviations in a row: X GC GGC GGGC GGGGC How many "G's" does a GC and another GC have in common? The answer is 1. That makes them first (1) cousins. How many "G's" does a GGGC and another GGGC have in common? The answer is 3. That makes them third (3) cousins. How many "G's" does a GC and a GGC have in common? The answer is 1. So, that puts them in the first cousin category. But, just like in math where you cross out common numbers and still have a remainder, you must count the extra "G's." The number of extra "G's" indicates how many times the cousins are removed. In this case, there is a remainder of 1. So the relationship between a GC and GGC is: first cousin, once removed. How about a GGGGC and a GGC? Remember that the number of common "G's" tells what kind of cousin it is and the remaining number of "G's" tell how far removed it is. In this case, there are 2 common "G's" which means the people are second cousins. With a remainder of 2 "G's" it means they are twice removed. Let's try a GC and a GGGGGGC. These two people only have one common "G" between them so they are in the first cousin range. The remainder of 5 tells us that these first cousins are five times (5X) removed. Well, that's really all there is to cousins and being removed. Now the mystery is gone and you didn't even have to try to figure out one of those hideous relationship charts.