First Cousins, Once Removed, Second Cousins?

First cousins

The children of two siblings.

Jeanne Schroeder Rupnick, daughter of my Uncle Milton Schroeder

  Kathy Drexler, daughter of my Auntie Marge Schroeder Drexler

 

 

 

First cousins once removed

Two people for whom a first cousin relationship is one generation removed.

Marilyn Schroeder VanHaren, first cousin to my father - daughter of my 

father's Uncle Mike Schroeder.

Second cousins

The children of two first cousins.

 Michael Patrick Schroeder (not my brother), grandson of my Grandpa Schroeder's brother Mike Schroeder.

Are you confused yet? Join the club, so am I. It's probably taken me 15 minutes to write these descriptions and I had to Google the descriptions because I wasn't even sure who was which kind of cousin and I had to draft a diagram...then I understood it...I think.

In the Schroeder family, family time isn't just for the six of us with our kids...it's for aunts, uncles, cousins,distant cousins and many times close family friends. My siblings and my first cousins Jeanne and Kathy got to meet a "new" cousin last night...his name might sound familiar because it's exactly the same name of my brother's name...Michael Patrick Schroeder.  Evidently, the two Mikes were in high school at the same time and heard of each other but never really knew if and how they were related. This is how he came to be at last night's party.

A month or so ago my sister Barb and I visited a cousin, Marilyn and her husband Roger in Beaver Dam to review some family tree pictures and documents. While we were talking Marilyn mentioned that she had a nephew(a second cousin to us) named Mike and he was a magician. My sister already was planning her husband's surprise 50th birthday day party and thought the idea of hiring a magician to perform the night of the party would be a great and different idea. Barb then told her daughter Sami about this idea. Sami went to work the next day at Staples where she is a customer service rep for the printing department, a man came in to order posters for his business...he was a magician. Sami told this man the story about how her family just found out that they had a magician in their family and her mother was going to have that man perform at a family party. You guessed it...the man was the Schroeder relative. A few phone calls between Mike and Barb and everything was planned. He was as excited to meet us as we were to meet him.

Mike put on a fantastic show for us and gave Milwaukee Mike a birthday performance that he will never forget. We were glad to welcome a new cousin to our "group" and hope to see much more of him at family functions.