Who are Cousins?
Cousins are people who share a common ancestor.
This whole concept would be clear if we called our
brothers and sisters our "zeroth" cousin. The
common ancestor is a parent. First cousins have a
common grandparent. Second cousins have a common
great-grand parent and so on. The
"removed" term measures the difference in the
number of generations to the common ancestor. Thus
the children of your second cousin are your second
cousins, one time removed. A person may have
millions of cousins, but he generally lacks the
documentation to identify them.
New England Connections
The early immigrants to New England were self-chosen
people. Most of them could read and
write. They had very strong and advanced religious
and political views. They kept very good records of
births, deaths, marriages, land ownership, wills, town
council meetings, etc. There is no place in
the world as well documented for genealogical purposes
for the past four centuries as New England. It is a
treasure trove of information.
The total immigration to New England between 1620 and 1640 was
just 22,000. These early immigrants had large
families. As a result, there is a
high probability for people who have 17th century New
England ancestors being cousins and having the
documentation to prove these connections. This is the case in the Parrish branch of my family tree.
U.S. Presidents Who Are My Cousins
For example, 11 U.S. Presidents are my distant cousins
as you can see in the table. The genealogy of the Presidents is given in the authoritative reference
"Ancestors of American Presidents" by Gary Boyd Roberts. You can trace the common ancestor
down to my Grandfather, Timothy Maltby Parrish, by just clicking on the child in each family.
|