Degrees of seperation vs kinship

Question

This has likely been answered before, but I could not find the answer.

Keith Hathaway and I have 19 degrees of separation, but we are 11th cousins.

How does that work?

Answer 1

Kristina,

"The Connection Finder finds connections between people by looking in all directions: parents, siblings, children and spouses."

(https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Connection_Finder#What.27s_a_Degree.3F)

The "Connection Finder" shows a 19 degrees connection between Keith and you:

1 degree: Keith's wife, 2 degree: Keith's wife's mother, and so on.

This is not a blood relationship.

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The "Relationship Finder" looks for a blood relationship between two persons, finding "the first common ancestor that is shared by both people."

(https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Relationship_Finder#Most-Recent_Common_Ancestor)

Keith and Kristina are 11th cousins once removed, your MRCA (most-recent common ancestor) is Humphrey Kirby-102.

This is a blood relationship.

Answer 2

Count the steps needed to get up the tree from you to the common ancestor between you and Keith, then continue down the tree to him - that's the "degrees of separation".

Comments

In this case, counting steps up to the MRCA and back down again will give more steps (about 24) than Connection Finder reported. The Connection Finder path is shorter, apparently because it includes connections through siblings and/or by marriage.

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I thought that counting the ancestors would be the actual reason for the difference.

Thankyou everyone for the answers.

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Kristina,

Being a girl, what do I know from numbers????

Seriously, sorry to be confused (and passing it on to you) by differences between connection finder and relationship finder.