Kindo Family Blog

Most beginners to genealogy are fuzzy about cousinship. For example, while many understand first cousins are people with common grandparents, many folks confuse first cousin once removed and second cousin.

Then, there are families like mine: My mother’s siblings were born from 1911 to 1932. That means her youngest brother “Mike” went to school with the oldest sister’s oldest child, his niece “Karen”. As it turned out, Uncle “Mike” and niece “Karen” married two people who were siblings, “Michelle”  and “Kevin”, making their children both first cousins and first cousins once removed.

Confused yet? Okay. The number of cousinship is how many generations back the connection is, and the removed part shows the connection is more generations back for one person than another. “Mike” and “Michelle” ’s kids have common grandparents with “Kevin” and “Karen’s”, ergo, first cousins. But on the other side, “Mike” and “Michelle’s” kids have an aunt who is grandmother to “Karen’s” and “Kevin’s” children, ergo, first cousins removed by one generation.

“Mike” and “Michelle’s” grandkids are second cousins to my mother’s grandkids, i. e. my children. “Mike” and “Michelle’s” children are my first cousins. “Kevin” and “Karen’s” children are my first cousins once removed, because “Karen” and I are first cousins.

Another way to look at it: Determine the latest common ancestor, and then the number of “G”s you share.  That is the number of cousins you are. Any difference in “G”s is the number “Removed”. So, people who have the same great-grand-parents (2G) are second cousins (2C). If the great-grand-parents (2G) of one person are the great-great-grand-parents (3G) of another person, then those two people are second cousins, once removed (2C1R). They share 2Gs with a difference of 1G (3-2=1).

Here are some links to charts that might make it easier to see:

• A Chart for Figuring Relationships
• A Chart for Figuring Relationships
• A Chart of Consanguinity
• Consanguinity Chart
  Showing degrees of relationship by blood.
• Cousin Calculator
• Cousin Chart
  From Wikipedia.

It’s back to school time, and maybe you’re thinking you need to know more about genealogy techniques and methods. One way to learn about genealogy is to take an online  course. Here are a few suggestions to get you started: Introduction to Genealogy from National Genealogical Society (U.S.) Most genealogists take this course first. It is very American-centric, but the techniques can be applied to any country’s vital statistics. There are more advance courses for specific regions and resources (e.g. wills). Introduction to Genealogy is an online course for those who have done little, if any, research on their families. It is open to anyone who wishes to enroll. Members of the National Genealogical Society (NGS) receive a tuition discount. Family History Personal Enrichment Classes Learn from Brigham Young University about research in the United States, France and Germany. These are non-credit courses, so there are no exams! Certificate in Genealogical Studies The National Institute for Genealogical Studies has joined forces with the Professional Learning Centre, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto to provide web-based courses for both family historians and professional genealogists. Canadian-based. GenClass Online classes in a variety of genealogical topics are conducted online by qualified, experienced instructors. Each four-week class includes a detailed course curriculum and online class meetings for $29.95. A more comprehensive listing, along with seminars, workshops and classes, can be found in my book.

In my book,Genealogy Online 8th Edition, the first chapter is about how to begin your genealogy project. For a detailed description, read my book ;D. But here is a short version of how to get started.

To begin your genealogy, begin with yourself.  Collect the information that you know for certain about yourself, your spouse, and your children. The data you want are birth, marriage, graduation, and other major life milestones. The documentation would ideally be the original certificates; such documents are considered primary sources. A primary source is an original piece of information that documents an event: a death certificate, an adoption order, a birth certificate, a military record, a marriage license,  a divorce decree, etc. Photographs, with the people in them identified and the date on back, can also be valuable. Such documents are considered primary sources because they reflect data recorded close to the time and place of an event.

If possible, scan in your sources of information on your immediate family.

Now, you’re ready to begin gathering data on one surname. A good place to begin is interviewing family members—parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws. Ask them for stories, names, dates, and places of the people  and events in the family.  It’s a good idea, and lots of fun, to record these interviews. You’ll cherish the audio or video later, I promise.

You can also gather secondary sources to expand your information: A secondary source is a source that may cite an original source but is not the source itself: an obituary, wedding story, or birth notice in a newspaper; a printed genealogy; a Web site genealogy, etc.  When possible, get documents to back up what you’re told. Family Bibles, newspapers, diaries, wills, and letters can help here. A good question to ask at this point is whether any genealogy of the family has been published. Understand that such a work is still a secondary source, not a primary source. However, if such a genealogy has good documentation included, citing primary sources, you might find it a great help.

Now you’ve got a good start on your genealogy!

The Kindo family would like to extend its best wishes to all the families out there celebrating Independence Day today.

Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, picnics, baseball games, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States.

What a great excuse to spend time with the people that are most important to you, your family. While, we are working hard in our little office in London, I trust that the majority of the USA citizens are having a fantastic day of holiday and celebration.

One way to share what data you have and note what data you need is to post your genealogy on the web. Before you do that, however, please read the Guidelines For Publishing Web Pages On The Internet. This document sets out the best ways to make your page findable and useable by other genealogists.

How do you publish? Why using the Kindo interface, of course, is one easy way. Just remember this important rule: Leave out data on living persons if you can.

That brings up another point, that is very, very important. Some folks are afraid that their hard work and research might be “stolen” from the Internet, so they deliberately insert factual errors on their web pages.

Dont. Do. That.

Ever.

If you have data you want to keep in reserve for future information swaps, simply omit it. If you have data you want to keep private until you publish your hardbound, limited edition genealogy, that’s fine. And of course, never publish anything that could be used to steal your identity.

But do not ever publish anything, in print or online, that you know to be false. It’s extremely difficult to remove all traces of anything on the Web, and that incorrect information may linger longer than you do!

Happy Family Tree Climbing!

EPC

It’s always interesting to get feedback from users - blame or praise. Thanks KL for sending us this mail which made us all happy!

By the way… we hope you have wireless internet back home so you can sit in the sun while building your family tree…

Subject: A wonderful website!

Oh my, how happy I was to find this page

I have for a long time wanted to make my family tree, but on paper it’s so cumbersome.

I’m so happy sitting here all days

Once again, THANKS - now I’ve finally got started with my genealogy!!!!!!

Best Regards //KL in Sweden

All of them are new faces in the section Kindo Celebrity Trees

New faces today are the golfer Tiger Woods (just announced that a wounded knee will make him miss the rest of the season), the tennis champ Roger Federer (now playing in Wimbledon) and the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.
We encourage all of you to drop a comment here if you would like to see a special celebrity’s family tree.

After me and Nils have tried to explain this more than one time to the rest of the Kindo troopers, I will here briefly tell you about how we in Sweden celebrate the summer solstice.

In Sweden, Midsummer’s Eve, is celebrated on the Friday between June 19-25, this year June 20, a bank holiday. Most Swedes would argue that this is one of the most important holidays of the year and we celebrate it in a unique way. People find their way out to the country side or the archipelago where they traditionally raise a huge maypole covered in green leaves and flowers. Summer dressed Swedes then perform ring-dances around the pole with singing and folk music in the background. Typical is the frog dance

Maybe even more important is the food: The year’s first potatoes, herring, maybe raw spiced salmon and strawberry cake is on the menu on many tables. Drinking songs together with this is popular. Maybe too popular.

Starting as a Pre-Christian ceremony to celebrate the longest day of the year, magic was believed to be extra strong. Still, many girls pick a bouquet of seven different flowers which they place under their pillow. The tradition say that they now will dream of their future husband to add to their Kindo tree

This is it for me, now I’m off for the west-coast!

Have you voted already about how often you are in touch with your mum? If not, do so now, it will only take a second. You scroll down a bit, you’ll stumble upon the poll in the right sidebar (looking like that pic here), tick on the right radio button and click vote. And don’t cheat

By the way: You can see the results as well, by clicking on the small results button below the vote field. Any you can start comparing it to the results in other languages, like Russian for example where the preliminary results are very different already.

We are looking forward to the final analysis in the next weeks!

Image via Wikipedia‘Finance + Family are going well’ thats the short and sweet message floating around the articles written by experts these days According to a latest article by Scott Burns modern parents can reduce their retirement worries if they raise their children. How does the cost of raising a family affect your retirement planning?

Scott uses an interesting mathematical derivation to arrive at the result. Parents, focus on their expenditures while raising kids (primarily their standard of living is affected) and this standard of living carries on once their job is over.

In mathematical terms for any household the cost of living is the square root of no. of people in the household.

The above derivations show that the cost of living is accounted for by 30% when parents have 2 children. So husband and wife contribute to 70% cost of living.

Scott has used another elaboration to explain his logic. For more on the interesting piece visit dailybreeze.com website here.