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Question:Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are related somehow. W and Kerry were 16th cousins, but I don't think they'd call each other relatives? Where do you draw the line?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are related somehow. W and Kerry were 16th cousins, but I don't think they'd call each other relatives? Where do you draw the line?

I draw it at fourth cousin. It is an individual choice, not a precise term. I have a third cousin who lives in the same county I do, goes to the same church and is just 2 months older than me. He and his brother are the only 3rd cousins I have ever seen in person. He's closer to me than some second cousins.

when you don't see each other at christmas..... you're distant relatives

2nd cousins.

Greetings Cuz :-)

I really don't have a "line". If I can trace the ancestry then they are my relation.

In general, I'd consider any relationship farther apart than second cousins (share a set of great-grandparents) distant, unless the people in it are brought up knowing that they're cousins and seeing each other in a family context at least occasionally. (Incidentally, it would be interesting to know where your respondents are from. I've lived all my life in the upper South, and I suspect that southerners see one another as related where people from other parts of the country wouldn't.)

We are all related. That's why the American Indians say 'for all my relations' whenever they do something good, they dedicate it for all humanity because we are all related. Simple but true!

2nd cousins are relatives, 3rd cousins are distant relatives; there is where I make the cut.