Sirius-Weasley Cousin-ness

[Phil Boswell]

No: HPFGUIDX 90381

"nuriaobradors" <nobradors at h...> wrote:
> In Oop, chapter 6, upon Harry's surprise from finding Narcissa and 
> Sirius are first cousins,  Sirius explains how pure blood families 
> are interrelated and examples (is that a verb in English?) :
> "Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur's something like my 
> second cousin once removed". 
> The second part of the sentence is very clear (as long as Sirius 
> isn't messing family relations up): Arthur would be Sirius's second 
> cousin child, either from Mrs Black side, or on some Mr Black's 
> *female* relatives. (none of my second cousins, for instance, has
the 
> same surname as me, and only one of my first cousins has).

Alternatively one of Sirius' parents could be Arthur's second cousin.

I had a look around and found an interesting chart at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~vatgs/cousins_chart.htm

As can be seen, the relationship is symmetric: you are "second cousin
once removed" to your "second cousin once removed" and vice versa.

> Now, my assumption here is that by saying "Molly and I are cousins
by 
> marriage" Sirius does NOT refer to her marriage to Arthur. My
reasons 
> to assuming this are:
[snipped because they appear sound]
> The possibilities, then, are as follows:
> 1. 
[possible previous marrige by Molly snipped]
> 2. Molly's cousin to Sirius by Marriage because her brother or
sister 
> is married to one of Sirius's cousins. 

There are more possibilities. Cousins are technically people who are
related to each other but not as close as siblings or aunts/uncles
(who are their *parents'* siblings).

So the relationship could be more distant.  All it needs is for one of
Molly's ancestors to have married one of Sirius' ancestors.

Bearing in mind the obsession with keeping the bloodlines pure, it
would not be surprising if relationships many generations back are
known. I've certainly met several third cousins (my Family Tree having
been traced for 27 generations this is not that hard :-) and their
ages could be very different from mine, despite us belonging to the
"same" generation.  Add to that the possibility of inter-marriage
*between* generations ...

> Either that or Sirius really find it tricky to determine family 
> grades of relative-ness. ;)

Doesn't everybody? HTH HAND
-- 
Phil