Counting Cousins in SNGF

If it is Saturday, then Randy Seaver is at it again and here is our mission:

Murphy-Keough Cousins' Surnames
made with wordle.net - thanks

1)  Take both sets of your grandparents and figure out how many first cousins you have, and how many first cousins removed (a child or grandchild of a first cousin) you have.

2)  Extra Credit:  Take all four sets of your great-grandparents and figure out how many second cousins you have, and how many second cousins removed you have.

HINT:  Make a Descendants Chart with your genealogy software program!

3)  Tell us the grandparents and great-grandparents names, but don't give the name of living cousins unless you want to.  

4)  Are there any of those lines that you don't know all of the cousins names?  Do you care?  

5)  Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post of your own.  Be sure to drop a comment to this post to link to your work. 

I have lots of cousins but I had not really stopped to think about how many until tonight. Having tooled around in Legacy Family Tree (my genealogy database software of choice) I was familiar with something in the miscellaneous report section called Relationships. Running the report shows me how I am related to everyone in my database (because let's fact it, it is all about me!). Of course you can change the person of interest and run the Relationships report for them but that is not the mission - stay focused.

For this mission and this blog, I choose the Murphy-Keough direct line (my permanent tag 1). I printed the report to a csv file, then saved it as a Microsoft Excel workbook. Finally I filtered the data in my workbook - yes, you guessed it, Excel will let you filter your first cousins, your first cousins once removed, your first cousins twice removed, and so on and so on. Now I am ready if next week's mission is second cousins, third cousins and fourth cousins (or any other relationship).

So who are my people and what are my stats - well I'm glad you asked.

My grandparents Andrew Francis Keough and Dora Josephine Murphy had three sons and three daughters, one of whom is my father.  I have seven (7) siblings and twenty-one (21) first cousins. Oh yes my aunts and uncles had children and we grew up visiting at my grandfather's home on a regular basis and we took summer vacations together when we were young. We still get together for family reunions and had one just last summer.

Thanks to the Legacy Relationships report (in my handy dandy Excel workbook) which was crosschecked for quality control purposes - I have eighty-three (83) first cousins once removed, seventy-three (73) first cousins twice removed and thirty-three (33) first cousins thrice (is that a word?) removed. I am sure that I don't have all our family members included, but this mission definitely tells me that I have some cousins I need to get in touch with and get more information from.

I want that extra credit Randy mentioned (and Legacy did all the hard work). My paternal great grandparents Patrick Keough and Mary Driscoll had ten (10) children and my maternal great grandparents Lawrence Edward Murphy and Catherine Matilda Murphy (those who follow my LVUG Community Tuesday's Tips will recognize this couple and no, they were not related) had twelve (12) children (what can I say - I am sure the names gave it away but we are 100% Irish Catholic on this line).

I have two hundred twenty-seven (227) second cousins - fifty-three (53) are second cousins, one hundred fifty (150) are second cousins once removed, and twenty-four (24) are second cousins twice removed. I also have one hundred eighty-eight (188) third cousins of all stripes, and fifty-seven (57) fourth cousins of all stripes (that means I added together the standard issue and the removeds for each of these classes of cousins).

I am sure I don't have everyone and that is part of the reason I blog. In answer to Randy's question, I do care about those missing cousins as I want our family history to be inclusive. So, if any of these names are familiar, we might be related - so contact me! 

There you have it, Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, part one. Now I have to do this same mission again for the non-Irish side of my family (otherwise known as my mother's side of the family). 

Mission Accomplished!