Removed Cousins: Definition

By Emilito (Emil Signes)
Rev. 2006-12-25

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English

The expression "removed cousins" seems to be unique to the English language. A simple description of "removed cousins" is given by clicking on this link to a Wikipedia article, which includes the following chart:

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So your first cousin's grandchildren would be your first cousin twice removed. Likewise your father's second cousin is your second cousin once removed.

Here is another representation. To use this, pick two people in the family, and figure out which ancestor they have in common. Pick the first person's relationship to the common ancestor on the top line, and the second person's relationship on the left column. The intersection of the first's column and the second's row is the relationship.

Common ancestor	Child	Grandchild	Great grandchild	Great-great grandchild
Child	Sister or brother	Nephew or niece	Grand-nephew or niece	Great-grand nephew or niece
Grandchild	Nephew or niece	First cousin	First cousin, once removed	First cousin, twice removed
Great-grandchild	Grand-nephew or niece	First cousin, once removed	Second cousin	Second cousin, once removed
Great-great grandchild	Great-grand- nephew or niece	First cousin, twice removed	Second cousin, once removed	Third cousin

For those few more inclined to a more general description, Emilito provides this for your edification. In English, a person's xth cousin's yth generation descendant (where y=1 for children, 2 for grandchildren, etc.) is that person's xth cousin y times removed. Likewise a person's mth parent's (where m=1 is parent, 2 is grandparent, etc.) nth cousin is the person's nth cousin m times removed.

As far as Emilito can tell, these expressions do not apply in Spanish; nevertheless he has not found a suitable precise correspondence for these relationships. (Basically, the way Emilito understands it, in English, in order to be an uncle or an aunt of a person, one must be a siblihg of one of that person's parents. In Spanish on the other hand, in order to be a cousin one must be of the same generation.

Nevertheless, the following website seems to indicate that Spanish can use the term "de segundo grado" to mean "once removed." (http://www.answers.com/topic/removed#after_ad4)

Emilito, however, is skeptical that this is generally accepted and welcomes corrections to his application of these terms to Spanish (described below).

"Removed cousins": comentario en español

En inglés, la expresión "removed cousins" refiere a primos de antepasados o a descendientes de primos.

Por ejemplo, in inglés, el padre de tu primo segundo se llama tu "second cousin once removed;" el nieto de tu primo hermano es tu "first cousin twice removed." Aunque ningún español con quien ha hablado Emilito le ha dado un equivalente en español, en este informe Emilito usará una definición que encontró en una página web (http://www.answers.com/topic/removed#after_ad4) donde afirman que"once removed = parientes de segundo grado."

Si alguien puede explicar un modo mejor para expresar estas relaciones en español, Emilito selo agradecerá muchísimo. Cuando refiere en español a este tipo de relacion estará escrita en este color.

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