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I am a descendant of President John Adams through his daughter, Rebecca. My children's father is a descendant of John Adams through his son, John Quincy. How are we related? Are we cousins? With a number of times removed?

I did not know my ex-spouse was related to me when we married in 1984. Even though many generations have passed, I would not have knowingly married a distant cousin.

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  • I think your question is a duplicate of the question indicated because, by virtue of sharing a common ancestor (President John Adams) you are cousins, and thus all that remains is to determine the degree of cousinship and whether any removes apply.
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Sep 26, 2015 at 11:19

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Let's assume John Adams is your only common relative, found somewhere perhaps around 9 generations back. That would make you and your husband 8th cousins. If there have been a different number of generations between your husband's side of the family and yours, then he's your 8th cousin, removed by whatever the difference is in the number of generations. Nothing wrong with marrying a 8th cousin, you share less than 1% of the DNA from dear old great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa.

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  • From what I can see in ancestry.com, it looks like that is our only common ancestor. I will count the number of generations, but seven sounds about right. Thanks so very much! I wasn't certain if it would be called a first cousin seven times removed, or just seventh cousin. I'm not very familiar with genealogy terminology.
    – user4296
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 18:15
  • I don't know how I did it, but I tried to move a response to my own post to be a reply to your post, and I accidentally deleted the link to the relationship chart. So sorry. I am a brand-new user and trying to learn on my phone is not working well. I will wait until I get on my computer and then familiarize myself with this site.
    – user4296
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 18:21

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