working out the great greats

[geniecolgan]

Lizdb,     See .... I told ya!
 
Genealogy has got it's own rules and they don't match familiar terms.

We all grew up with this thing about not calling someone a grand except grand mother & father. Probably some cultural thing about not putting on airs & graces.

However, I had two Grand Aunt Lou's, one was a small person, the other was portly. So they were called Little great aunt Lou and Big great aunt Lou..... not very flattering

jc

[Guy Etchells]

Take a look at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/%7Eframland/acts/affinity.htm
there is a chart at the foot of the page that may help.
Cheers
Guy

[pennine]

Wow that was informative! Takes a lot of getting ones head around.
One question if I can't marry my adopted son in theory and my husband can't marry my adopted daughter in theory can the two adopted children get married to each other as they are not blood related! And could one of the adopted children marry a natural sibling of the family?
Pennine

[DudleyWinchurch]

Are you sure that this is not just another of those instances where Britain and the US are two nations divided by the same language?

Longman's Dictionary (British) says great is used to refer to 3 or more generations away direct or two or more generations away indirect.

This fits in with common British usage which is that parents become grand and then great but uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, etc. only become greats.

[dollylee]

If you do a google search it seems that this could well be as DudleyWinchurch says.  There seems to be a pretty even split on the usage of great vrs. grand as it applies to aunt, uncle, niece and nephew.

Other sites such as http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/relationshipterms.html

show that both terms are acceptable.

I find that not only confusing but odd.

Sorry lizdb I was out of line in correcting you.

dollylee

[geniecolgan]

OH Jeez!
  just when I thought I'd got it sorted out, now I'm all confused again

Oh well, so long as we know who's who.
Just don't have a transatlantic family like I have.

jc

[kimmieto]

Thank goodness the software I use to enter my rellies on the computer has a calculator or I would be lost.

Makes for interesting reading too if you stick in the odd person here and there.  Sometimes the wording used to describe you makes you sound positively ancient.