working out the great greats

[pennine]

My other half's sister has a daughter. Daughter has three children. One of these children has two children. In my book this means that last lot of children are the great grandchildren of husbands sister.
However, other half is uncle to his sister's daughter, great uncle to daughter's children which must make him great great uncle his sister's great grandchildren. Am I right?

Pennine

[pennine]

To explain, what I need to clarify here is if sister, her daughter and her daughter and the little ones had a photo taken there would be four generations?

If other half had a photo taken with his neice, great neice and great great neices we would still only have four generations!
Hence the great great renders absolute confusion to researchers, yeah?

Pennine

[geniecolgan]

According to my handy-dandy Relationship Calculator;

You have "other half" and his sister = Gen 1,

your Other Half's sister's daughter is his niece = Gen 2,

her daughter is his Grand niece = Gen 3,

his Grand niece's children are Great Grand nieces/nephews = gen 4.

This is four generations.

erm! now I'm old and confused 

   What was the question 
jc

[dollylee]

That's right jc.

You have to be grand before you are great, Therefore great grand mother and great grand uncle of the same child would be sister and brother as in this case and either one of them in the picture with the others would make it a four generation picture. (and wouldn't that be a wonderful picture to have!)

dollylee

[Comosus]

The problem is that I, and many others, have been brought up knowing "great uncles" and "great grandparents".  Really, "great uncles" should be "grand uncles", like grandparents, as they are in the same generation.  I don't know why they are sometimes known as "great uncles", as it makes no sense to me either!

Andrew

[geniecolgan]

I agree Comosus, even I grew up calling my dad's aunt my Great Aunt but I have since been corrected by other genealogist. Embarrassing eh?

I'll bet 9 out of 10 people do the same thing until they start trying to trace their tree and get tangled up in the relationship/kinship web.
jc

[lizdb]

In answer to the original question (I think!!), yes, uncles and aunts do have an extra 'great' compared to grandparents of the same generation.

I am great aunt to my brothers grandchildren, he is just grandad. Though, of course, he and I are same generation.

But to their children (thinking ahead here, they are only age 6 and 4!) I will be great-great-aunt, and he will be great-grandad.

[dollylee]

Actually lizdb you are the grand aunt of your brothers grandchildren.(see my post above)  That is the correct term used in genealogy.. again, you are grand before you are great.

You would "technically" be the great grand aunt of your brothers great grandchildren.

For some reason it seems most of us grew up calling our parents aunts or uncles great aunt or uncle when that term is incorrect.  Growing up the only time I ever heard the term grand aunt was in old English movies.

To tease my father's sister I call her my daughters mediocre aunt, telling her she isn't all that grand......she loves it and now all her bridge partners call her mediocre.

dollylee

[lizdb]

Well, you learn something new every day! I never knew I was a grand-aunt!!

Just to complicate things, my grand neice and nephew  just call me Auntie Liz. They used the phrase Great Aunt for my step mother - who was therefore actually their step-great-grandmother, but had been known throughout her life to my brother and I as Auntie, although actually no actual relation till she married my dad after my mum died!

Good luck to future family historians!!