Family Tree Question?

Question

Ok, so, pay attention carefully:

My mom's twin sister is married, and that gives me an uncle related to me by marriage. They have 3 kids. They are 3 of my 10 1st cousins. I have 2 2nd cousins i know of, they are my moms cousin's daughters. My uncle, the one married to my moms twin, has 2 sisters, and one of them has 2 kids. My mom says i am not related to them, i say i am by marriage. So my question is, what are they to me? (whats the word, 3rd cousins? 2nd cousins, not considered related? what?)

Here is a simpler explaination of who they are:

Robby and McKenzie are my: mom's twin's husband's sister's kids

OR

blood related aunt's, sister-in-law's kids

who are they to me?

ALSO: I am interested in learning about my ansestors from a LONG time ago! As far as i can find out! I have tried ansestory.com but it fails to give me any real info about my family tree, where can i find it, how do i get it? i cant have it cost money!

Answer 1

Robby and McKenzie are simply your cousins' cousins.  If you want to call you uncle's brother and his wife your uncle and aunt and their children your cousins, that's a warm,  inclusive thing to do, but they're not related to you biologically or really even by marriage.  A relative by marriage is the spouse of a blood relative, or you're the spouse of one of his/hers.

Answer 2

For free genealogy, a good start might be familysearch.org.  They have millions of names available, all for free.  You can go really far back, especially if you have nobility or royalty in your line.  For example, I have gone on some lines as far back as 6 A.D.  However, for commoners, the further you go back, the scarcer the records are.  

To answer your question, I think that you have no relation to your mom's twin's husband's sister's kids, except by marriage, then I think you'd be some kind of cousin.

Cheers!

Answer 3

Your uncle's sister's kids are not blood relatives, but I guess you could consider them "cousins by marriage", especially if you see them a lot at family gatherings and have become close to them, I was kind of in a situation like that.  although I'm not sure that they are truly relatives by marriage even.  As far as getting ancestry info for free, I think that's few & far between.  if you have names, places of residence (or even better, places of birth) you may be able to contact the office in that city/town that handles birth records.  Sometimes once the birth is considered old enough (like 80 or 100 years) you can get info from them.  For copies of documents you have to pay, but you might be able look through archives or something for free.

Answer 4

Your mom is right.  Your mom's twin's husband is your uncle, but his siblings and his siblings children are not related to you because they have different grandparents and great grandparents than you do.  You are right about your mom's cousin's daughters being your second cousins, you are related to them because you share the same great grandparents.

As for tracing your ancestry, ancestry.com probably didn't find records that match your relatives in your family tree because the records available are only if they are deceased and born prior to 1930.  If you have details (birth/death dates, locations) of your grandparents or great grandparents, you can edit your question with this information, and I'm sure someone will find records to get you started.

This link is really helpful for people getting started with their ancestor search.  It also has links to lots of free sites.

http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html

Happy hunting and good luck.