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=== Generations ===

We felt that visitors could orient themselves more readily in the wiki if they could compare generations. We have arbitrarily assigned the babies in our family to generation 50. Their parents are generation 49, and so on up. Fifty generations should give us enough space to go back at least to William the Conqueror, if needed.

This scheme can go awry if someone marries someone from a different generation and they have children together. We hope we don't run into that situation; if we do, we'll just wing it!

Using the generation numbers, you can easily figure your relationship to any of your relatives. If you are in generation 49 and you have an ancestor in generation 44, the number of "greats" is two less than the difference: 49-44-2=3, so the ancestor is your great-great-great grandfather. If you are in generation 48 and you have a distant cousin in generation 47 and your closest ancestor in common is in generation 42, you are fourth cousins once removed. To find the number of times removed, subtract your generation from your cousin's generation and ignore the minus sign. To find the degree of cousinship, take the smaller of 48-42 and 47-42 and subtract 1. You can even calculate your degree of consanguinity, very easily: it's (48-42)+(47-42)=11.

The DeWees/DeWeese Family Association Newsletter has assigned an arbitrary number to each family member, to avoid misidentification. We will give those numbers as DFAN-nnn in each biography where known.