Family Sources
Understanding Relationships
As you explore Family Sources and study Documents and Records to learn more about your family history, you may identify - and in some cases come into contact with - individuals to whom you are distantly related.
If you are interested in determining exactly how you are related to another person - or how any two people, living or dead, are or were related to each other - use this Relationship Chart [PDF].
When using the relationship chart to determine the relationship between two individuals:
- Identify the common direct ancestor. For example, if Kenneth Mah is the grandfather of one person and the great-grandfather of another, he is their common ancestor.
- In the top row of the chart, find the relationship of one of the two people to the common ancestor, for example "great-granddaughter".
- In the left row of the chart, find the relationship of the second person, e.g. "grandson".
- Follow the columns down and across to where they intersect. The box at which they intersect will show you the relationship (in this case, First Cousins Once Removed).
In Chinese, the names given to different family relationships differ according to the exact relationship. For example, whereas in English, both your father's mother and your mother's mother are your "grandmother", paternal and maternal grandmothers have different relationship names in Chinese. Full details and a listing of relationships, with both Cantonese and Mandarin spoken versions, are provided on this Chinese Family Relationship Titles chart.
Photo banner: Detail from VPL Historical Photograph 70242
