Technically speaking, your second cousin is one with whom you share a set of great-grandparents. Another way of looking at is that if two individuals are first cousins then their children are second cousins. Often people just think that their second cousin is simply their relationship to the child of their first cousin. That’s technically a first cousin once removed. A chart on the National Genealogical Society website explains the relationships. Personally instead of saying “Susan and I are second cousins” it is more clear to say that “my Grandma Ufkes and her Grandma Habben were sisters,” perhaps naming the grandmas as well. People are more concerned how you are related than what that relationship is called and explaining it is certainly more clear than only saying what […]
This is your periodic reminder to work on photo identification and preservation–particularly of those items of which your original copy is the only one. The 1860 census will be there in a week. Life happens. You uncopied, unpreserved, undigitized, unshared copy of that photograph of great-grandma may not.
In census records where every member of the household is enumerated, it may be easier to find the family by looking for one of the younger children instead of the parents. One family I am trying to find in 1860 includes a father and a mother who used one of two first names–apparently depending on the whim of the census taker or the weather (I’m not certain which). Their place of birth varies as well and their last name (not easily understood by ears trained in English) also creates additional challenges. They had two children who would have been under 10 in the desired census year (who survived beyond that enumeration) and whose names are English names–more difficult for a census taker to get wrong. Sometimes it is […]
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