Monday, March 15, 2010

How cousin are we?

Last weekend we got the chance to go visit Brenda, my husband's 2nd cousin twice removed, whom we found through a series of events that involved also another long lost cousin, Sarah.
We  enjoyed our time so much, getting to know her, her husband and her mom, and scanning so many family pictures!
At the same time, I realized that while we all know we are cousins, and both my husband and Brenda trust me when I tell them they are 2nd cousins twice removed, it really sounds a bit confusing!
It wasn't until my husband told me that he couldn't explain to Brenda's mom how they were related, that I realized I had to make it more visual, and I promised my self and Brenda that I would do it ASAP.
So, this morning I just had to do it.
I started gathering the pictures from each generation, for each of the three lines involving Sarah, Brenda and my husband, then I uploaded them on my publishing account, and I started a new 8.5x11 page project.
Once it was done, I wondered why didn't I think of it sooner!
Each level is a generation, so you can see siblings, then cousins, then 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins and so on. Looks like my children are the farthest in the descendancy line!My husband came home and finally said that he understood the relationship with his long lost cousin, plus I received a great feedback from both of the other cousins, and I know they will enjoy showing it to other  family members on their descendancy line.
It might be interesting to notice that for each line, the cousins that were "starters" in finding each other, are on a different level. Almost as if for each generation there was one appointed to reconnect the family...
I am going to create more version of this"cousin" chart, to include each and every distant cousin we  are so grateful to be connecting to, so that when we will see each other at our family reunion, it will be so much easier to understand and remember how exactly we are related!
I can't wait!

By the way, if there are other descendants of Martin Lorenzo Dow and Julia Judenia White out there, or if anybody in this chart seems familiar, let me know, I am always looking for long lost cousins!

If you would like to learn more about the various degrees of kinship, you can give a look at this entry on the wikipedia

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