Following every family gathering, the little girl always had questions for her grandmother. “Grandma, I just get confused about what to call people sometimes!”
“Well it’s hard, sugar, ‘cause we don’t always call them by the rules. Let me see if I can explain.”
The little girl accepted the cold co-cola her grandmother offered, and made herself comfortable in the red and white glider on the front porch. Louise Craine walked back into the living room to pick up her pad of paper and a pen before joining her granddaughter. There was just enough afternoon breeze to make this August day a bit more bearable.
“So, sugar, you understand all about parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, right? Now you can imagine that if you go back any farther the writing gets a little cumbersome.”
“You mean like my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Joseph Caswell Haddock?
“Yes. See you could write it all out just like you said it. Or you could even write GGG-Grandfather instead. Another way would be to write G3 Grandfather, kind of like in math, as powers of Great.” On that last note, the child giggled to herself thinking, Who would have thought that genealogy could be written like mathematics?
The grandmother drew a line across the paper before starting the next section. “Now your aunts and uncles are your parents’ sisters and brothers. Like your Uncle Carlton and Uncle Franklin are your daddy‘s brothers.” The child nodded enthusiastically because this part was not at all confusing.
“Now my sisters and brothers would correctly be called your Grand-Aunts and Grand-Uncles, but down here we call all aunts and uncles past your parents’ siblings, Great. Like you call my brother, Great-Uncle Pearson, instead of Grand-Uncle Pearson. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard anyone saying my Grand-Uncle so-and-so.”
“What about cousins?” Now this explanation was one the granddaughter really needed. Cousins were the most confusing of all!
Slowly and methodically, the grandmother began sketching a chart on the notepad. “Cousin is a confusing term to everybody, not just you. Generally, we call cousins across all generations just cousin. Like you have grown up calling kinfolk from Haddock who are my cousins, Cousin Annie Lou and Cousin Lonnie also. Although, I do think you need to understand the whole system to take your family notes accurately.”
After stepping away just long enough to get another co-cola, Louise Craine settled back down and began the simplest way she knew how. “If two people have the same grandparents, then those two people are first cousins. If two people have the same great-grandparents, then those two people are second cousins. If two people have the same great-great grandparents, then those two people are third cousins…and so on…and so on.” The child thought, easy so far.
Then the grandmother prepared her for the harder part. “Now, listen closely. Your daddy’s or mama’s first cousins would be your first cousins, one generation removed. Those same cousins will one day be your children’s first cousins, two generations removed.”
With the light beginning to fade, the grandmother tore the sheet of paper from the notepad and folded it. Grandma Louise had cautioned that what you call someone depends entirely upon which two people you are putting together each time. As she handed her granddaughter the paper to put into her Bible she added, “I think you should just write them out every time with you as one of the two people, sugar. After all, you will be the one who will be doing all this explaining one day.”
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