That cousin
The Legal Genealogist is swooning.
Seriously.
Head over heels over a male of the species.
And he’s not even tall, dark and handsome.
He’s short, sandy blond and adorable.
He’ll be a year old tomorrow, and he’s my brother’s first grandchild.
His name is Jack.
And I am not taking time from meeting Jack to write a blog post.
But I can’t leave this space vacant, so here’s the answer to a question asked by reader Joe Fibel after the blog post “Reprise: duty came first” this past Saturday.1
There, I had described the late George Thomas Cherryhomes of Young County, Texas, as a shirt-tail cousin of mine, and Joe hadn’t come across that reference before.
Now don’t go reaching for Black’s Law Dictionary here, okay? This isn’t a legal term, but a plain ordinary term you’ll find in plain ordinary dictionaries.
A shirt-tail cousin is a distant cousin2 or, more generally, someone who is “distantly and indefinitely related (as in) a shirttail cousin on her father’s side.”3
And I love the way Rhonda McClure explained it in What Makes a Cousin? in 2001:
Often I have received questions asking how a person is related to the sister of their husband’s brother-in-law and other obscure relationships. The answer is there is no relationship. When a marriage is the only connection between two individuals, then there is no cousinship in the true sense of the word. The most you can claim with this person is a shirt tail cousin. The cousinship is riding on the shirt tails of someone.4
Shirt-tail relatives. A term that definitely does NOT include my great nephew Jack. To whom I am returning. Immediately.
SOURCES
- Judy G. Russell, “Reprise: duty came first,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 21 Feb 2015 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 23 Feb 2015). ↩
- Collins Online Dictionary (http://www.collinsdictionary.com : accessed 23 Feb 2015), “shirt-tail cousin.” ↩
- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com : accessed 23 Feb 2015), “shirttail.” ↩
- Rhonda McClure, “Twigs & Trees with Rhonda: What Makes a Cousin?,” Genealogy.com, posted 25 Oct 2001 (http://www.genealogy.com/ : accessed 23 Feb 2015). ↩
In Hawaii this is called a “Calabash Cousin”, one of those in-law, outlaw, by marriage, who knows but he shows up (with all the kids) for dinner at family events types. A calabash is a vessel made from a gourd to serve food in Hawaii. So it makes sense.
Calabash cousin! I love it!
Jimmy Durante used to say, “Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!”
We’re dating ourselves again, Lauren… 🙂
My mother and her mother often used the phrase “shirt-tail relative”. As well, they would speak of “kissing cousins”, not in the sense that they were cousins who were married or dating each other, but as relatives who weren’t closely related but close enough that you could greet them with a familial kiss.
Had not heard that term in quite a few years Judy. I thought it originated in Texas. Had to look it up, found this but not the true origin of the term.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-shi5.htm
Our family has often used the “shirtrail” cousin to describe cousins of cousins. But one I’ve adopted, to expalin some,more modern relationships is that we are related by divorce: my sister’s ex’s sister’s ex is married to the sister of a high school friend/sorority sister. Without the divorces, we wouldn’t be lart of each other’s extended faMilies at all. But the children of these dissolved marriages are related to each other, and we share nephews, cor example.
That works too!
I’ve heard the term before, but never used it myself. If I’m trying to define cousins through marriage, I’ll usually say “cousin inlaw” so they know not blood, but might as well be.
We called the married-in folks “outlaws” most of the time…
Cute article. I’ve never heard the term “shirt-tail cousins”…I like it…although sometimes “the outlaws” does seem more approriate but I bet the other side thinks the same about our side. I know…”Git along, git along!”
I’m sure the tables are turned in the “outlaws'” minds!
Sister of husband’s brother-in-law could be yourself (since your brother is your husband’s brother-in-law). Otherwise, if English had the compound relationship words of some Scandinavian languages she’d be your hubsishubsis.
I’d rather go with the Scandinavian on that one!
My life has been filled with both “shirt-tail” and “kissing” cousins, since those are expressions my mother used frequently to explain the relationships of people whose relationship she didn’t quite know how to explain since some of her uncles, particularly, were “multiple marriers”. She also used it when she didn’t have time to slow down and think through exactly what the relationship was!
Your mother’s side and my mother’s side used the terms the same way!