Why am I given a different relationship to Brigham Young on his profile page and under Connection Finder?

Question

Brigham Young's profile says he's my 16th cousin three times removed. But the Connection Finder that says I'm 15 degrees from him says he is my 3rd cousin once removed's husband's grandfather's sister's husband's wife's brother.

Why the difference?

Answer 1

One is stating your blood relationship to him, while the other is stating your connection to him.

Blood relations are literally that - how you genetically relate to that person through what kind of relationship. You can also find a common ancestor if you share that type of relationship.

However, a connection takes the shortest path to a connection through marriages, adoptions, and any other legal relationship to demonstrate how we're "connected" (not necessarily "related").

So I am 1 degree from my wife. But I probably won't show a common ancestor (hopefully) unless it's very far back. So I won't be related in a cousin relationship with her. But as I build my tree, I might encounter someone who is 3-5 degrees from me, who isn't a direct part of my close relationship bloodlines, whom I'm related to through some very distant ancestor. In that case, I'd have a relationship like you describe. 16th cousins 3 times removed (16c3r) and 15 degrees from me.

Hope that helps explain it.

Comments

This was the best answer to me. You might have explained that the 16th cousin 3x removed relationship was from the Relationship Finder (blood relationships only) and the other,  the more complicated relationship, was from the Connection Finder (all relatives including those through marriage).

Thank you for all your answers. I appreciate it.

Robinson-52786

Answer 2

The relationship that shows on his profile is most likely from the WikiTree Browser Extension. That data is cached, so it may be out of date. If you click on it, it should refresh.