Chart Abbreviations | Chart Instructions

Keeping track of family relationships can be complicated and it's sometimes hard to figure out how one person is related to another, especially when you come upon second, third or fourth cousins. The chart below may be of assistance when determining familial relationships.

Chart Abbreviations Used:

CA Common Ancestor
C Child
S Sibling (Brother/Sister)
N Niece/Nephew
GC Grandchild
GGC Great Grandchild
GN Grand Niece/Nephew
GGN Great Grand Niece/Nephew
#C Cousin Relationship, e.g., 1C = First Cousin, etc.
#R # of times removed, e.g., 4R = 4 times removed, etc.

Chart Instructions

1. The box marked CA on the chart in the upper left-hand corner is the common ancestor of two people.
2. Identify the relationship of the first person to the common ancestor, e.g., child, grandchild, 8th great grandchild, etc. Find that box on the top row.
3. Identify the relationship of the second person to the common ancestor, e.g., grandchild, great grandchild, 3rd great grandchild, etc. Find that box in the left-hand column.
4. Follow the column straight down from the top row and follow the row straight across from the left-hand column. The relationship of the second person to the first person will be the box where the two lines meet.

	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
0	CA	C	GC	GGC	2 GGC	3 GGC	4 GGC	5 GGC	6 GGC	7 GGC	8 GGC
1	C	S	N	GN	GGN	2 GGN	3 GGN	4 GGN	5 GGN	6 GGN	7 GGN
2	GC	N	1C	1C 1R	1C 2R	1C 3R	1C 4R	1C 5R	1C 6R	1C 7R	1C 8R
3	GGC	GN	1C 1R	2C	2C 1R	2C 2R	2C 3R	2C 4R	2C 5R	2C 6R	2C 7R
4	2 GGC	GGN	1C 2R	2C 1R	3C	3C 1R	3C 2R	3C 3R	3C 4R	3C 5R	3C 6R
5	3 GGC	2 GGN	1C 3R	2C 2R	3C 1R	4C	4C 1R	4C 2R	4C 3R	4C 4R	4C 5R
6	4 GGC	3 GGN	1C 4R	2C 3R	3C 2R	4C 1R	5C	5C 1R	5C 2R	5C 3R	5C 4R
7	5 GGC	4 GGN	1C 5R	2C 4R	3C 3R	4C 2R	5C 1R	6C	6C 1R	6C 2R	6C 3R
8	6 GGC	5 GGN	1C 6R	2C 5R	3C 4R	4C 3R	5C 2R	6C 1R	7C	7C 1R	7C 2R
9	7 GGC	6 GGN	1C 7R	2C 6R	3C 5R	4C 4R	5C 3R	6C 2R	7C 1R	8C	8C 1R
10	8 GGC	7 GGN	1C 8R	2C 7R	3C 6R	4C 5R	5C 4R	6C 3R	7C 2R	8C 1R	9C