If brothers marry cousins, how are children related?

Members of the Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society came up with several good questions last week during a talk on figuring out cousins. Here’s a real-life question posed by one of those attending: If two brothers marry women who are first cousins to each other, how are their children related?

Let’s say that Brother 1 and Cousin 1 have Child 1. Brother 2 and Cousin 2 have Child 2. (Insert first names in these equations if that makes it clearer.)

Brother 1 and his wife, Cousin 1, therefore, are uncle and aunt to Child 2. And Brother 2 and Cousin 2 are uncle and aunt to Cousin 1.

The two children are first cousins by virtue of the fact that they are the children of siblings and thus share at least one grandparent.

But the two children also are second cousins to each other because they are the children of first cousins. In this line, the children share great-grandparents.

Moreover, because the children are one generation removed from the first cousins, Child 1 also is a first cousin, once removed, from Cousin 2 – who also is his aunt by marriage, and Child 2 is a first cousin, once removed, from Cousin 1, who also is his aunt by marriage.

The way I figure out cousins is to draw out the question. I put the common ancestor at the top of a piece of paper; the two siblings, who are offspring of that ancestor, one row down. The siblings’ offspring are first cousins, one more row down, and so on. We’ll talk more about cousins in the coming months.

Bangor, Lewiston and Portland weren’t the only Maine communities with concentrations of Irish families, Dick Kelly reminds us.

“Smaller Irish enclaves exist elsewhere in Maine, most notably at Benedicta and Houlton,” Kelly said. “These two areas of Irish settlement are both in Aroostook County, and, while only 40 miles apart, were settled by Irish immigrants coming from different directions.”

The settlers came in the 1830s and 1840s – to Houlton from Saint John, New Brunswick; and to Benedicta from Boston.

Benedicta, as many of us know, was the location where Bishop Benedict Fenwick planned to have an Irish Catholic settlement and a college. Many Irish did come to the area, but the college did not, and instead became College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

I didn’t realize that Irish had come to Houlton from Saint John, which interests me because my Given and Orr ancestors were in Saint John.

Kelly has three small publications available. They are:

. “Bishop Benedict J. Fenwick and the Origins of the Benedicta, Maine Community,” by Sister Marie of the Visitation Nicknair, 98 pages, 1992, O’Ceallaigh Publications, $10.

. “The Irishman: A Factor in the Development of Houlton,” by William J. Thibadeau, 139 pages, Kennebec Journal, 1910, reprinted by O’Ceallaigh Publications, $12. Thibadeau’s mother was Irish.

. “Requiescant in Pace,” 1839-1991, St. Benedict’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, a survey and statistical analysis, by Richard D. Kelly Jr., includes all tombstone inscriptions of St. Benedict’s Cemetery, Catholic sections of Kingman and Macwahoc cemeteries, and miscellaneous death and interment records of Benedicta Township and St. Benedict’s Church; also, 1837 and 1840 censuses of Benedicta Township and heads of families for later census years, 163 pages, O’Ceallaigh Publications, 1994, $14.

All prices include postage and handling. Send orders to Richard D. Kelly Jr., 62 Davenport St., Augusta 04330.

For more than 30 years, Dennis King has been a brick and stone mason in Hancock County, having begun his masonry journey by working with Vaughn Carlisle. Summer cottages and year-round homes on the coast display King’s work.

In addition to fireplaces and chimneys, King has built Russian-style masonry heaters, having apprenticed with Basilio Lipenchenko of Richmond. King has a quarry in Sullivan and operates Dennis J. King Masonry Inc. in North Hancock.

He will talk about his work during the annual meeting of the Historical Society of the Town of Hancock at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, at the Hancock Community Center.

3338. GROSS-WOODBURY-STEARNS. Looking for the birth record of my great-great-grandfather, Amos T. Gross, to find out identity of his parents. His son Alexis’ marriage record gives Amos’ birthplace as Orland, but I’ve found no birth record for Amos in Orland, Belfast, Bucksport, Swanville or Frankfort. Amos married Harriet L. Stearns Woodbury on Dec. 25, 1870. Both are buried in Smart Cemetery in East Belfast. Believe they lived in East Frankfort, where he had a farm. Swanville vital records list Amos and Hattie’s marriage intentions on Dec. 17, 1870. Jeanine Lawrence, 9 Lambtown Road, Ledyard, CT 06339.

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; or send e-mail, family

ti@bangordailynews.net.