Deep Confusing Philosophical Question

[moe.ron]

I was talking to this dude this afternoon. He said that he is th 3rd cousin twice removed from Dave Matthews. Can somebody tell me what that actually mean? My head hurt from trying to figure out just how close of a relative he really is to Dave Matthews.

[justamom]

easier to copy than explain-generations apart="removed".
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

1 great-grandparent
|
2 sibling-----------------------------sibling
(grandparent) (grandparent)
| |
3 1st cousin--------------------------1st cousin
(parent) (parent)
| |
4 --> YOU--------------------------------2nd cousin
|
5 2nd cousin, once removed

When you are at the same generation level (same number of ancestors
back to the common ancestor) you are first, second, third, etc. cousins.
When your generations are different, such as YOU in the example and
your parent's 1st cousin, you are once removed from the generation,
or 1st cousins, once removed.

Just remember that the number of "cousins" is determined by how many
ancestors you have between you and you common ancestor; if they
are the same number, there are no removes. If they are different,
the number of differing ancestors determines how many "removes".

[G8Ralphaxi]

I knew one of our Southern ladies would answer this question! Good job, JAM. Wish you had written that section of my estates & trusts law textbook 2 years ago - they had this extremely complicated grid with teeny print that made no sense.

And moe, I think the answer is, your friend is close enough to DMB to sound cool, but not enough to get you any free tickets.

aint that the turth....my wills and trust book doesnt even come close to explaing that in a clear concise manner