My grandmother, Kathleen Cudmore (1908-2013), had many cousins. Her sister Rosemary claimed they had ninety.
Their father, Arthur Murray Cudmore, was one of thirteen children and their mother, Kathleen Mary Cavenagh-Mainwaring, was one of ten.
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| Two of the bridesmaids at my grandmother’s 1933 wedding, Mary and Dymphna Toll, were her cousins. SOCIAL NOTES. (1933, June 12). The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 – 1954), p. 5. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46980229 |
The children of James Francis Cudmore (1837-1912) and Margaret née Budge (1845-1912):
- James Kenneth Cudmore (1867-1948) had four children
- Margaret Jane Cudmore (1869-died young)
- (Arthur Murray Cudmore, Kathleen’s father, had two children)
- Violet Mary Cudmore (1872-1947) had three children
- Kenneth de Lacy Cudmore (1874-1940) had two sons
- Dorothea Nevill Cudmore (1876-1925) had one son
- Thomas Cecil Cudmore (1877-1926) had no children
- Rosa Florence Cudmore (1879-1954) had five children
- Daniel Cashel Cudmore (1881-1966) had one child
- Alexandrina Budge Cudmore (1882-1953) had three children
- Mary Jane Cudmore (1883-1884) died as an infant
- Mary Paringa Cudmore (1887-1952) had two children
- Robert Milo Cudmore (1889-1969) had four children
There were 25 Cudmore cousins for the two daughters of Arthur Murray Cudmore.
The children of Wentworth Cavenagh (1822-1895) and Ellen Jane née Mainwaring (1845-1920):
- James Gordon Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1865 – 1938) had four children
- Eva Mainwaring Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1867 – 1941) had two children
- Mabel Alice Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1868 – 1944) had two children
- Wentworth Rowland Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1869 – 1933) died without issue
- Orfeur Charles Cavenagh (1872 – 1890) died without issue
- (Kathleen Mary Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1874 – 1951), Kathleen’s mother, had two children)
- Hugh Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1875 – 1953) had three children
- Helen Maud Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1877 – 1918) had three children
- Alice Mainwaring Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1879 – 1952) had two children
- Gertrude Lucy Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1882 – 1968 ) had one child
There were seventeen Cavenagh-Mainwaring cousins for the two daughters of Kathleen Mary Cavenagh-Mainwaring.
In total my grandmother Kathleen had 42 first cousins.
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| Some of my grandmother’s first cousins once removed. Members of the Cudmore family who owned “Adare” at Victor Harbor. Back Row, l-r: Roland, Henry, Mary (Minnie), Paul. Front Row, l-r: Collier, Martha, Daniel H;, Danny (on footstool), Milo DATE ca.1900 From the State Library of South Australia image B 48077. Daniel Henry Cashel Cudmore (1844-1913) was the brother of my grandmother’s grandfather. |
As their grandparents were all from large families, Kathleen and her sister Rosemary had many second cousins. Their great grandparents on the Cudmore side had 52 grandchildren, including the 13 children of James Francis Cudmore. 39 of those grandchildren were the first cousins of Kathleen’s father Arthur Murray Cudmore and thus my grandmother’s first cousins once removed. The children of the 39 cousins were Kathleen’s second cousins.
On the Budge side, Kathleen’s grandmother, Margaret Budge, had two brothers and two sisters but only one of the brothers and one of the sisters had children and there were only five grandchildren other than the thirteen Cudmore grandchildren.
Kathleen’s grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh had six brothers and sisters. Only one brother had two sons who survived.
On the Mainwaring side, although Kathleen’s great grandparents had seven children, only one, Kathleen’s grandmother Ellen Jane Mainwaring had children. Thus Kathleen had no second cousins from this side of the family.
In total my grandmother Kathleen had 46 first cousins once removed. This calculation does not include the younger generation, the children of her first cousins.
My own cousins
I have only two first cousins, the daughters of my mother’s sister. My father was an only child and my mother had one sister. These cousins do not have children so there are no first cousins once removed downwards.
My mother had no first cousins. Her father was an only child and her mother’s sister had no children. She is, however, close to a cousin of my grandmother’s, and also to her children, my mother’s second cousins.
My father had one cousin on his mother’s side of the family, the Cudmore side, with whom he remains close. There was another boy who died as an infant. On his father’s side, the de Crespigny side, my father has four first cousins from his father’s sisters and five cousins from his father’s half-sister. In total I have eleven first cousins once removed on my father’s side of the family.
As for my second cousins, my great aunt Nancy had five grand children. My great aunt Margaret had six grandchildren. I am not sure of the number of grandchildren my great aunt Charlotte has (I must follow this up with her). On the Cudmore side, my great aunt Rosemary had three grand children. I have fourteen second cousins in addition to the grand children of my great aunt Charlotte.
Geneablogging
This post was inspired by Randy Seaver’s post some weeks ago asking How many cousins do you know you have?
I enjoyed Alex Daw’s and Caitlin Gow’s responses and thought I would have a go myself.
I wanted to calculate my great aunt Rosemary’s statement about the number of cousins she had. 42 first cousins and 46 first cousins once removed is certainly a lot. Calculating the number of second cousins is a large task that remains for another day.
I found it very interesting that both my grandmother Kathleen’s parents came from large families but their children, my great grandparents and my various great great aunts and uncles on my grandmother’s side, all had small families. There was a very rapid shift in the size of families within a generation.
I am more interested in tracing my family tree backwards than keeping track of the present generation but I am always delighted to hear from them and would be thrilled to share what I have learned of our family history.
The challenge was:
1) Take both sets of your grandparents and figure out how many first cousins you have, and how many first cousins removed (a child or grandchild of a first cousin) you have.
2) Extra Credit: Take all four sets of your great-grandparents and figure out how many second cousins you have, and how many second cousins removed you have.
HINT: Make a Descendants Chart with your genealogy software program!
3) Tell us the grandparents and great-grandparents names, but don’t give the name of living cousins unless you want to.
4) Are there any of those lines that you don’t know all of the cousins names? Do you care?
5) Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post of your own. Be sure to drop a comment to this post to link to your work.
