When determining family relationships, are you supposed to use the most immediate common ancestors?

I ask because I compared myself to a relative on my mother's side who is the grand son of our immediate common ancestor, while I am the x2 great grand son, making us, according to this chart, http://genealogy.about.com/library/nrela鈥?/a> first cousins, twice removed.





But if I started from one generation earlier, my relative the great grand son and me the 3x great grand son, he becomes my second cousin, twice removed.





So which is correct?|||Yes. You start from most recent common ancestor. The person you're comparing yourself too is your grandmother's first cousin, which means your grandmother and the cousin share the same grandparents. That makes you 1st cousins, twice removed.|||both are correct. normally, of course, the closer relationship is the important one. My wife and I are certainly cousins, but it may be that we are 89th cousins. Yet, the closer relationship, husband and wife, is the one that is of interest to society.|||Yes but it can get quite complicated, I find it easier to use a family tree package ( I use Generations) and let this work them out for me.





I work out all relationships based around me as this is basically what I want to know. Hope this helps