* Cousin lists and charts

[Archie MacLean]

Hi,
I have a question regarding cousins. I have a lot of cousins in my tree, and some of them end up marrying each other. I'd like to be able to print-out a list of all the people in the tree who are cousins, and a chart of the cousins who are married to each other. I hope it's possible using FH7 because it would explain (pictorially and otherwise) a lot about them and their offspring!
If not, maybe this request could be passed on to the development team, and perhaps this feature could be implemented in the future.

Cheers Archie

[davidf]

I think you need to get your mind around more precisely what you are trying to achieve.

What would a "list of cousins" look like? It could be a (very) long list where each person in the tree (in some defined order) is listed and then indented under each name is everyone who is a cousin of that person. Leaving aside the query (or plug-in?) necessary to produce this you need to decide what degree of cousin-ship do you want to include.

(Run it on a tree of say European Royal Families and you will get a huge list - all British monarchs seem to be related in multiple ways (i.e. via cousin marriage) to Edward II or III or Charles II - so almost everyone is a cousin!)

Your tree will be less extreme unless you have traced your ancestry back to a Monarch who "put it about a bit".

The list will be more manageable if you restrict it to people who are cousins (of any degree) who are also married. But that will prompt the question of how they are related - without an answer to that the fact that you have cousins who are married is pretty meaningless.

With the "How Related" option (under the tools menu in V6) you can display graphically or by report how two specific people are related.

Are you wanting to almost run the "How Related" option against every couple? - That will produce a lot of output!

[Gowermick]

David, whilst you are correct in your comments, how related doesn’t seem to work once cousins married. I found the relationship comes back as husband and wife! You will only get the true relationship ( of which there could be many) if you unmarry them

[Jane]

How related can shown multiple relationships and you can customise text schemes to show more than one.

On diagrams the "show duplicates" option will automatically highlight any cousins or other inter-relationships through marriages etc.

For any given person you can use the How related tool or the Relations and 5 nearest relationship query to view a report of how everyone is related. You could customise a copy of this to only include cousins.

[tatewise]

Mike, If you select the Blood Relationships Only option then the marriage between cousins is ignored and their blood relationship is shown.

[tatewise]

Archie, welcome to the FHUG.

As others have said, your request needs refinement to understand exactly what you want reported.
The first thing to define is exactly what you mean by 'cousins'.
Are you talking about 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, and how many 'removed'?
i.e. Is their common ancestor a grandparent, or a great-grandparent, and are they in the same generation?

[davidf]

Has "How Related" changed between V6 and V7?

On V6 for a well known cousin marriage, I see:

QE&DoE

Screenshot from 2022-04-21 13-21-44.png (57.33 KiB) Viewed 1785 times

Given the number of "lines", it is probably necessary - even for less well documented families - to refine exactly which cousin relationships you want to document.

[tatewise]

David, V7 is much the same as V6 and if Max Direct Relationships is increased up to 9 then multiple relationships are listed.
What is new is the Blood Relationships Only option that excludes relationships via marriage.

[davidf]

Thanks, although I am now wondering what Max Direct Relationships actually means. Clearly I have not understood something.

Looking at the diagram in my last post, there are more than 9 relationships listed. The "Direct" 9 seem to me to be:

1. 2nd cousin
2. 3rd cousin
3. 4th cousin
4. 5th cousin (one of?)
5. 6th cousin (one of?)
6. 7th cousin (one of?)
7. 11th cousin
8. 12th cousin
9. 14th cousin

So "Spouse" is excluded - so is "Direct" a partial proxy for "blood"?
Duplicate degrees of cousin-ness (presumably by different lines) don't seem to count towards the "9".

The dialogue does say "Direct or Indirect Relationship" - although without investigating them all I cannot see how one 5th cousin-ship is "direct" but another is not. I have certainly never viewed the spouse of a cousin as a cousin (direct or indirect).

So how can you "indirectly be a cousin"?

[tatewise]

Yes, I see your point. It is not obvious how the limit of 9 is being applied.

The Help for Tools > How Related... says:

Opens the How Related dialog box which shows you up to 9 different ways that two people are related. If they are not directly related to one another, it will show you how they are indirectly related through a third party, if they are.

I interpret that as meaning a direct relationship is a direct blood-line ancestor/descendant.
So indirect relationships are via a common '3rd party' ancestor, i.e. 'cousins'.

I wonder what happens to your list of relationships as you reduce Max Direct one by one?

[LornaCraig]

I interpret that as meaning a direct relationship is a direct blood-line ancestor/descendant.
So indirect relationships are via a common '3rd party' ancestor, i.e. 'cousins'.

That's not how I interpret it. I think a direct relationship is any 'blood' relationship, including cousins. Anyone you could share DNA with. (Although adoption is a special case).
An indirect relationship is one involving a link via marriage somewhere in the chain. So as David says, 'direct' is a proxy for 'blood'.

[tatewise]

So how do you interpret the Help page phrase "If they are not directly related to one another..."?

And what does the Blood Relationships Only option exclude?

In FH V7 that excludes marriages/partnerships and also non-birth relationships like adoption, foster, and step.

[LornaCraig]

"If they are not directly related to one another..." means if they are not 'blood' relatives (where in this case adoption etc. is treated as if it is a blood relationship). The How Related tool lists direct relationships first, followed by indirect (non-blood) relationships. If there are no direct relationships at all, it will still list indirect relationships.

'Blood Relationships only' excludes the second category from the list. So if there are no direct relationships the list will be empty.
In V7 it also excludes relationships via adoption etc.

[davidf]

I wonder what happens to your list of relationships as you reduce Max Direct one by one?

Well going the other way (because the inevitable investigation will be less laborious):

Max Direct = 1 (or 2 or 3!) gives:

Max Direct = 1, 2 or 3

Max Direct 1,2&3.png (17.28 KiB) Viewed 1716 times

Max Direct = 4 gives:

Max Direct = 4

Max Direct 4.png (23.43 KiB) Viewed 1716 times

Max Direct = 5 gives:

Max Direct = 5

Max Direct 5.png (24.67 KiB) Viewed 1716 times

Curiouser and curiouser!

Rather hoping someone has an explanation before I start digging through a rather large downloaded and then augmented file!

If you have a "mutual cousin" (up to a grand-parent, down to the cousin, up to one of their grandparents (who is not one of your grandparents) and then back down to a grandchild - like an "M") you are in the same "pool" but are you "related" - directly or indirectly?

If you allow "mutual cousins" and their spousal relationships, you can waste a lot of time on the likes of Kindred Britain proving not a lot - as long as you find a "gateway relative".

[tatewise]

Lorna, Ah! That makes sense.
It was the "indirectly related through a third party" that confused me and is not strictly correct.

What gets confusing is the parent-child relationships of adoption, foster, and step.
If the Blood Relationships Only option is NOT ticked then any relationships involving those child-parent relationships are listed the same as direct blood-lines, but ticking that option removes those relationships.

David, that is mysterious.

[LornaCraig]

If you have a "mutual cousin" (up to a grand-parent, down to the cousin, up to one of their grandparents (who is not one of your grandparents) and then back down to a grandchild - like an "M") you are in the same "pool" but are you "related" - directly or indirectly?

In earlier versions of FH there used to be a clear definition of a (direct) 'relative'. The same rule still applies but I cannot find the definiton in the current Help anywhere. A direct relative is someone who is either a direct ancestor or a descendant of a direct ancestor. This includes all cousins of nth degree. But it does not include people who are related only via a 'mutual' cousin, as in your example. However it does include people linked by adoptive relationships.

The latest incarnation of FH has introduced 'blood relative' as a refinement, presumably becasue of the surge in DNA research. A 'blood relative' is anyone who is a direct relative (under the above definiton) and whose chain of connection does not include an adoptive relationship.

[tatewise]

Should "A direct relative is someone who is either a direct ancestor or a descendant of a direct ancestor" be supplemented with
"A direct relative is someone who is either a direct descendant or an ancestor of a direct descendant"?
OR is it only "direct descendants" which is covered by "descendant of a direct ancestor", i.e. your children and grandchildren are descendants of a direct ancestor who is your father or mother.

As well as adopted, that non-blood-line also applies to foster and step relationships.

[LornaCraig]

Should "A direct relative is someone who is either a direct ancestor or a descendant of a direct ancestor" be supplemented with
"A direct relative is someone who is either a direct descendant or an ancestor of a direct descendant"?

No. Becasue
(a) Direct descendants are already included in the definition. They are included because they are descendants of your ancestors!
(b) Ancestors of direct descendants include people who have no 'blood' relationship to you. Your child's ancestors include your spouse's ancestors who are not your 'direct' relatives. You do not share any DNA with them (unless coincidentally you have a common ancestor).

To summarise:

A direct relative is anyone who is a direct ancestor or a descendant of a direct ancestor.

A blood relative is anyone who is a direct relative and whose chain of connection does not involve any adoptive/foster/step relationship. These are people you share DNA with.

An indirect relative is anyone who is not a direct relative but is in the same ‘pool’. This includes people whose chain of connection includes marriage relationships or ‘mutual cousins’ (as in David’s example).