Home › Family relationship names

Family relationship names explained

What is your grandmother's sister called? Is your cousin's son your second cousin? This guide names every relative you are likely to meet on a family tree, with a chart, a glossary and the rules behind the words.

Family relationship chart

Every label below describes the person's relationship to you. Solid green boxes are blood relatives; dashed boxes are relatives by marriage.

Parents, grandparents and "great"

Your direct line runs straight up and down the tree. Going up: parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent. Each extra generation adds one "great". Genealogists shorten long chains with numbers, so your great-great-great-grandparent is your 3x great-grandparent (sometimes written 3rd great-grandparent).

Going down works the same way: child, grandchild, great-grandchild, 2x great-grandchild.

Aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews

Your aunts and uncles are your parents' siblings. Your nieces and nephews are your siblings' children. The husband or wife of your aunt is also usually called your uncle (an uncle by marriage), though he is not a blood relative.

One generation further, your parent's aunt is your great-aunt (or grand-aunt), and your niece's child is your great-niece (or grandniece).

Great-aunt or grand-aunt?

Your grandparent's sister has two correct names. Great-aunt is by far the most common in everyday English. Grand-aunt is preferred by many genealogists because it lines up with "grandparent": she is in your grandparents' generation, so she gets "grand", and each generation beyond that adds a "great".

Pick one style and use it consistently on your tree.

Cousins and "removed"

Cousins share an ancestor but neither descends from the other, and they are not siblings or aunt/niece. Two numbers describe them:

• Degree (first, second, third…) — how far back the shared ancestors are. First cousins share grandparents, second cousins share great-grandparents, third cousins share 2x great-grandparents.
• Removed — how many generations apart the two cousins are. Your first cousin's child is your first cousin once removed; so is your parent's first cousin.

Not sure which one applies? The cousin calculator works it out from how each person descends from the shared ancestor, and shows a full cousin chart.

In-laws

In-laws are relatives created by marriage rather than descent:

• Mother-in-law / father-in-law — your spouse's parents.
• Son-in-law / daughter-in-law — your child's spouse.
• Brother-in-law / sister-in-law — your spouse's sibling, your sibling's spouse, and (informally) your spouse's sibling's spouse.
• Co-parents-in-law — your child's spouse's parents. English has no standard single word; Yiddish uses machatunim and Spanish consuegros.

Cousins, aunts and uncles of your spouse don't have special names — people simply say "my wife's cousin" or "cousin by marriage".

Step, half, adoptive and foster

• Half-sibling — shares one parent with you. Their children are your half-nieces and half-nephews, and children of half-siblings are half first cousins.
• Step-parent — your parent's spouse who is not your parent. Step-siblings are your step-parent's children: you share no parent.
• Adoptive relatives are full legal family; an adopted child is the son or daughter of the adoptive parents in every legal sense. Many family trees show adoption with a note or a dotted line, and some also record the birth family.
• Foster relationships are usually temporary care arrangements without a change of legal parentage. Record them in notes unless the child was later adopted.

In our family tree maker, half-siblings appear naturally: add both partners to the parent, then choose the right other parent when you add each child.

Other useful terms

• Nibling — gender-neutral word for a niece or nephew. Pibling is sometimes used for an aunt or uncle.
• Cousin-german — an old term for a first cousin.
• Kissing cousin — a distant relative familiar enough to greet with a kiss; not a precise relationship.
• Double cousins — related through both parents, for example when two brothers marry two sisters.
• Collateral relatives — relatives who are not your direct ancestors or descendants: siblings, aunts, cousins.
• Lineal relatives — your direct line: parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren.
• Maternal / paternal — on your mother's side / on your father's side.
• Consanguinity — the degree of blood relationship between two people.

Glossary

Frequently asked questions