What is the difference between a second cousin and a first cousin once removed?

Second cousins share great-grandparents and sit in the same generation as each other. A first cousin once removed is a generation away from you: your first cousin's child, or your parent's first cousin.

How do I record a relationship I cannot prove yet?

Mark it as unconfirmed and write down what would prove it — the record you expect to find and where. A hypothesis you have labelled as one is useful research; the same hypothesis recorded as fact becomes someone else's brick wall.

Why do so many trees contain the same wrong ancestor?

Because copying is easier than checking. One unsourced link gets duplicated into hundreds of trees, and the repetition starts to look like evidence. Volume of agreement is not proof; a record is.

How do half-siblings and step-families fit into a tree?

As explicit relationships, not as omissions. Record the second marriage, mark which children belong to which union, and keep step-relationships labelled — remarriage after early death was extremely common, and hiding it makes later records look contradictory.

What does "consanguinity" mean on an old marriage record?

It means the couple were related closely enough to need a church dispensation, and the record often states how — "third degree", for instance. Those mentions are gifts: they name a shared ancestor you had not yet identified.

How can DNA help confirm a paper relationship?

Shared centimorgans give an expected range for a claimed relationship. If two people you believe are second cousins share far too little DNA, the paper trail needs re-examining — usually at the generation where a link was assumed rather than documented.

Should I add living relatives to a public tree?

Keep living people private. Most platforms let you hide them, and in Europe data about living individuals is personal data with legal protection, whatever the genealogical value.

What is the fastest way to see how two people in my tree are related?

Use the relationship calculator rather than counting by hand. Once a tree passes a few hundred people, manual counting through two lines up and back down is where mistakes creep in.

Vestigee — Understanding Family Connections | Blog

Learn about family relationships and genealogy terminology