Cousin
Descendant of an ancestor's sibling / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about First cousin?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
A cousin is a relative that is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin.
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
More generally, in the kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of relationship in which relatives are two or more generations away from their most recent common ancestor. For this definition Degrees and removals are used to further specify the relationship.
Degree measures the number of generations from the most recent common ancestor(s) to a parent of the cousin. If the cousins do not come from the same generation Removal is specified as removal measures the difference in generations between the two cousins. This is relative to the most recent common ancestor(s). When removal is specified each cousin is separated by a different number of generations from the common ancestor. In this case the degree of the cousin from the previous generation is used.
To illustrate usage, a second cousin is a cousin with a degree of two; there are three (not two) generations from the common ancestor(s). When the degree is not specified, first cousin is assumed. A cousin "once removed" is a cousin with one removal, or generational difference, namely the child of one’s first cousin or the first cousin of one’s parent. When the removal is not specified, no removal is assumed.[1][2]
Various governmental entities have established systems for legal use that can precisely specify kinship with common ancestors any number of generations in the past; for example, in medicine and in law, a first cousin is a type of third-degree relative.[citation needed]