Reunion (Leister Productions) calculates relationships. I quote just a small part from the manual:

A first cousin once removed is a term that could describe either the child of your first cousin or the child of your great-aunt. We felt it would be helpful to distinguish the two. Thus, cousins in the descendancy include an asterisk (*) to distinguish from the cousins in the ascendancy.

For example, the child of your first cousin is called a cousin in the descendancy -- your 1C1R*. To understand the difference, it may help to think of this person as a descendant of a full cousin.

The child of your great-aunt is a cousin in the ascendancy -- your 1C1R. In this case, the individual is actually an ancestor of one of your full cousins -- your second cousin.

                                              GG-Grandparent

                                             /         |

                                            /          |

                                           /           |

                                  GG Aunt     G-Grandparent

                                         /       /     |

                                        /       /      |

                                   1C2R  G Aunt Grandparent

                                      /       /    /   |

                                     /       /    /    |

                                2C1R   1C1R  Aunt  Parent

                                   /       /    /      |

                                  /       /    /       |

                               3C      2C   1C     You

                                /       /     /        |

                               /       /     /         |

                          3C1R*   2C1R*  1C1R*   Child

                              |       |    |

                              |       |    |

                          3C2R*   2C2R*  1C2R*

 

3C, 2C, 1C: 3rd Cousin, 2nd Cousin, 1st Cousin

Red:   Ascendant Cousins

Green: Descendant Cousins

 

This web site is the collective work of the subscribers to the mail list BELGIUM-ROOTS-L founded June 1998 by Georges Picavet (see our members page and the copyrights page for more info) Q:\webbeta\rw_belgiumroots\sci\genealogy\kinship_english.html (br_sci) This Global file was last updated 18/01/2007 23:48:43 CET and uploaded Thursday, 18-Jan-2007 16:14:09 MST