The only true Maggi niece celebrates today. I use the adjective in italics due to her being my brother’s daughter. There are the daughters of cousins I just call niece for simplicity, I have no idea how to do that cousins-removed silliness. English needs to come up with labels for relatives beyond immediate family. A co-worker who spoke fluent Cantonese said they figured it out in China centuries ago.
So Anna is growing up a Cali Girl like my friend Ethan’s trio of daughters. She spent over a decade in Chicago which tells me she’ll have a more even head and not be totally caught up in the frequent California Uber Alles ‘tude I often smell from visitors during SXSW, ACL Fest and other excuses to slum in Fly-Over Country.
Somara and I wish her well. We do look forward to meeting Anna in person eventually. Maybe their parents will bring them out to Vegas for the weekend as a half-way point. Probably not. Then again, I need to find an excuse to visit the Mothership at my job. Brian is in the area, ergo I can be introduced as the goofy, DINK Uncle from Texas.
I’ve never understood how people have any trouble with this.
The ordinal (1st, 2nd, etc) is the intragenerational relationship. A 1st cousin is your uncle’s child. A 2nd cousin is your grand uncle’s grandchild (same generation as you).
Removedness is number of generations removed from you. So, fully stated, a 1st cousin, twice removed, is really a “first cousin, removed by two generations.” This person would be the first cousin of your grandparents.
It only gets weird when you get to cousins distant enough that it’s unlikely you’ve met them unless you have an uncommonly well connected family; Your great grandparents’ kids are your great grand uncles and aunts, their kids are your first cousins, twice removed, their kids are your second cousins once removed, and their kids are your third cousins.
But there’s a pretty easy way to remember this: You always, always, always call your removed cousins the same thing your direct ancestor or descendent of the same generation calls them, just with a different removedness.
That second cousin, once removed is your parents’ non-removed second cousin. Their parent, your first cousin, twice removed, is your grandparents’ non-removed first cousin.