Canon Law Relationship Chart: "Show your work"

Remember when you were in junior high, or middle school, and the math teacher gave you a problem to solve:  5+X=8.

Any first grade graduate could look at this and know it is three, but if you answer was "3", you got the question wrong with a nasty little note that said "Show work".

This chart is a lot like that "Show work" comment.  To know that you understand the foundations of that answer, you need to know how the whole thing works.

In the olden days - before computers, like 1978, we used canon law relationship charts, like this one to calculate how one person was related to one and another person.

Today, just like in algebra, you push a button and you get your answer.   But how do you know that the computer program got to that answer?

It is important that even IF you have a computer, and who doesn't that you understand how this chart works.

So let's agree on two basic premises:

1) The chart we are using was written out in a chauvinistic fashion.  It uses "males", when it should be gender neutral.  I know that, I recognize that.  But this is what I could get my hands on that is free of copyright restrictions, via wikicommons.

And

2) People who are related to one and other through "blood" share a common biological ancestor.  The inverse of that argument is, biological descendants of a common ancestor have named relationship.

We are going to use this chart to determine that relationship.

Just like Glenda told Dorothy that journey's begin at the beginning, this chart works one way - from the top down, and it starts with the "C.P." or common progenitor.  This is the person that both people have in common.  So for this chart to work, both people's lines have to be traced back to a point where they share a common progenitor, or common ancestor(s).  If John knows who his ancestors are, and Mary does not, then Mary had better get cracking.

But if both John and Mary know the name of the common progenitor(s), the one person (or couple) they share, then we can work our way down this chart.

So let's assume that John and Mary are cousins, and let's give them one of the most misunderstood relationships that most people thing that they have with cousins: The Myth of the "Second Cousin"

John is the grandson of Max and Ida, and the son of Jane.

Mary is the great granddaughter of Max and Ida, the granddaughter of Martin and the daughter of Emily.

Now, many, many people think that because Martin and Jane are brother and sister that:

1) John and Emily are first cousins - which is TRUE.  And because they are cousins, that makes,
2) John and Mary second cousins, right?

I mean think about it.  You have a cousin and that cousin has a child so the the child's relationship must be a second cousin because second comes are first, right?

Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you, Pearl?

Well, you would be wrong.

How can this be? 

That's right: clutch your pearls, Pearl.  They are not second cousins.

Why, because full cousins have a relationship of equality.  They have a relationship that is, on both sides, equal from the shared common ancestor.   And we know that John is two generations from his grandparents, and Mary is three generations from the same man and woman, Max and Ida.

So how do we figure it out?

To the Canon Law Chart!

Now this is all color coded out for you, but lets just work with me, OK?

So lets put Max and Ida in the green outlined diamond.

Let's put Martins (blue) family line along the left had side, and Jane's (yellow) along the right.

And we count down each side one diamond for each generation.  That means Mary would fall into the fourth diamond on the left and John into the third diamond on the right.

Now we go inward along those lines and the diamond where they meet (the green diamond) is the diamond that tells us the relationship:  First cousins, once removed.

Yes, they are first cousins, and when you add in the generational shift of inequality, that shows the times (generations) removed.  This is the clarification of the unequal generations.

When will the ship right itself?  When John father's a child.  Then that child and Mary will be second cousins because they are an equal number of generations removed from the C.P., in this case Max and Ida.

Yes, there are short cuts, but just like you memorized your times table in elementary school, this is essentially the same thing for genealogists - a multiplication chart for relationships.  The good news that you don't have to memorize it, you just need to play with it and understand it.

Memorize this concept and you can wow and amaze your friends. Moreover, you will become the oracle that others seek when they are confused.  And when you can explain the generational shift that comes with the "times removed" you will leave non genealogy people slack jawed.

But if you get how the canon law chart and how it works, then you know the foundation for calculating relationships.

Coming Friday - Do you know where your storage really is?